Episode 61 - The Power of Self-Leadership in Sobriety with Andrew Bryant

Ever felt like you’re living life on autopilot, swept along by habits before you’ve even stopped to ask, “Is this really for me?” Maybe you’re used to being the problem-solver, the thinker, the one who journals your way through challenges—but breaking up with alcohol still feels like assembling one of those infamous flat-pack furniture pieces: overwhelming, confusing, and occasionally in need of an exorcism.

This week on Flat-Pack Sober, Duncan is joined by Andrew Bryant—a globally-minded speaker, author, and coach on self-leadership—who shares how he built his alcohol-free life one intentional choice at a time. Andrew’s journey takes us from his pub-crawling youth in England, through career changes across continents, health scares, and discovering that sometimes the most important shift is in our own identity.

Key themes from Andrew’s story include:
– The power of self-reflection and journaling in creating lasting change
– Navigating relationship dynamics when one partner gives up drinking
– Letting go of the “all or nothing” mentality—why autonomy can empower sustainable sobriety
– Learning how to process emotions without numbing out, and the real benefits of facing life clear-headed

If you’re curious about how to move from “knowing” to “doing,” or questioning if you can really become someone who doesn’t drink, this episode is for you. Hear how Andrew applied the principles of self-leadership (yes, the kind he teaches top CEOs!) to his own alcohol-free journey—and how you can build, tweak, and strengthen your sober space one thoughtful step at a time.

Tune in for inspiration, laughs, and practical takeaways for anyone working to design a life that genuinely fits.

Connect with Andrew Bryant:

• Website: SelfLeadership.com
• LinkedIn: Andrew Bryant

Thank you for listening and being a vital part of the Flat-Pack Sober community. Together, we’re building life one sober piece at a time. Stay tuned, stay strong, and keep assembling the best version of yourself!

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Transcript

Duncan [00:00:00]:
What is your name?

Andrew Bryant [00:00:01]:
Andrew Bryant.

Duncan [00:00:02]:
When did you last sing?

Andrew Bryant [00:00:05]:
When did I last sing? Oh, my God. Long, long, long time ago. I long learned that I might be able to speak, but I cannot sing. There was an awful incident in a karaoke bar when I was out with a client and I kind of had to, and I think I did. We Will Rock youk by Queen what.

Duncan [00:00:26]:
Do you feel most grateful for?

Andrew Bryant [00:00:29]:
Life itself. I've had the near death experience and I am just so grateful to be alive and the loved ones in my life and the fact that I'm actually living the dream here in Portugal and it's bright sunshine outside.

Duncan [00:00:45]:
If you could wake up tomorrow with one new skill or ability, what would you pick?

Andrew Bryant [00:00:50]:
Well, after you asking me about singing, I might say that.

Duncan [00:00:55]:
In three words. What does sober mean to you?

Andrew Bryant [00:00:58]:
I am free.

Duncan [00:00:59]:
If you could find out one truth about yourself, about the future, or about anything at all, what would it be?

Andrew Bryant [00:01:08]:
Why? I like challenging what is too serious.

Duncan [00:01:12]:
To be joked about.

Andrew Bryant [00:01:14]:
I'm a bit of an advocate for Ricky Gervais on this one. I think if you can't find humor in something, then you, you've lost your humanity. You've lost your ability to step back and get perspective. I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to make a joke at the funeral, but you know, afterwards there is always a possibility of making fun of something.

Duncan [00:01:36]:
Are you a fan of ikea?

Andrew Bryant [00:01:38]:
Oh, furniture's functional and minimalistic, but going into the store feels like I'm a rat in a laboratory and I get this sense of having to escape.

Duncan [00:01:50]:
If I gave you some of IKEA's finest and flat pack furniture. Furniture, what would be your approach to assembling it? Would you ask for help? Would you read the instructions? Would you lay it all out, look at the picture, think about it. Or would you just get stuck in?

Andrew Bryant [00:02:07]:
Yes, well, all of the above. Because I've done all of the above. I tend to like to lay things out, you know, organize this, you know, where are the screws, where are my tools and where's the map? And then start putting it together. Although in latter years I've realized that time is too valuable. And here in Portugal, or you can, when you buy the ikea, you can also pay the extra money and they come and put it together for you. So I would, these days I would do that. You know, my, my, my days of spending a Sunday putting something together and introducing, you know, you know, getting the next door neighbors to call in a priest for exorcism because of the cursing coming from my. From my lounge room is probably not a good idea.

Bjorn [00:02:49]:
Do you get discouraged when the gurus recommend things that just don't work for you? That's why you need to know your sober style. Understanding how you approach alcohol free living will help you make the most of what you hear, including the Flatpak Sober. Learning how you solve problems won't just increase your self awareness, it'll make cutting through all the recovery information much easier. And that'll make your alcohol free life solid like some well built furniture. Take the Sober Style quiz for free at flatpacksober.com welcome to Flatback Sober the Wonderful AF with your host Duncan Bascoran Brown.

Duncan [00:03:37]:
Welcome to Flatpak Sober, your catalogue of tips, tricks and tactics to design your alcohol free life. And it's a very special episode today because, well, very special guest. And also it's the start of season three. I know, season three. How did we get there? In honor. I even wore a new shirt. So as you can tell, we're ringing in the changes. So my guest today is a truly, truly international guy. He was born in the uk, his passport's from Australia, his wife's from Brazil, he lives in Portugal and he started businesses in Dubai and Singapore, which is, if that wasn't international enough, you should meet his clients which come literally the four corners of the globe. So it's going to be a very, very international one today. I think so. Andrew, thanks so much for joining us.

Andrew Bryant [00:04:26]:
It's absolutely a pleasure.

Duncan [00:04:28]:
So I put your answers to those quick questions into our proprietary AI, he's called Bjorn. And what he came up with was that your sober style is the reflector. So do you like his work? Do you agree with that? Are you kind of a quite a reflective person?

Andrew Bryant [00:04:48]:
I am a reflective person. I am always curious of the narrative that's running in my head and becoming sober was an exercise in reflection. When I made the decision, I journaled every day and reflected on what my frames of mind and narratives were around why I drank and what was coming up as I'd made the decision to let go.

Duncan [00:05:13]:
Oh, cool. We always like to start off and introduce our guests, you know, in, in their kind of approach to sobriety because I think it helps to, to ground people because sometimes you hear a lot of advice, a lot of things that have worked for other people and you think that sounds great, but it doesn't work for you because, well, you know, they're not that kind of. They're not like you, they don't approach problems in the same way. So there's probably not much point in giving you advice to just tell you to go and get on with it because you want to think about it and you want to reflect on it. So that's why we always start off with that and then we always like to get into alcohol. So how did you get into alcohol? How did it all start?

Andrew Bryant [00:05:54]:
Was born in England. Right. So, so, you know, I mean, I was, I was, I was playing on a pub Darts team at 15. You know, I was a strapping, rugby playing, grammar school boy and, you know, going to the pub was a cultural norm and, you know, as soon as I could get served, being questioned on my age, that was it, you know, and alcohol is the social lubricant in, in the uk. It, it's a sense of identity, it's a sense of maturity, it's, you know, and, and there's a sense of belonging, you know, Cheers. The American comedy where everybody knows your name. That's the, the frame of. That's huge. So how did I get into it? Oh, that was it. And why would you question that? It just seemed like a rite of passage.

Duncan [00:06:45]:
Well, no, no, I quite agree with you. I, I think if you'd asked me when I was sort of similar age as you getting started, if you'd asked me why I was drinking, why was it getting into alcohol? I'd probably said, well, why would I get into air? You know, it's just. Yeah, it was kind of that obvious, wasn't it? So. Well, I'm guessing it probably seemed like fun at the time, but didn't stay that way. So what kind of got you to the point where you started to think about maybe stopping or dialing it back a little bit?

Andrew Bryant [00:07:21]:
So I, I don't think I was ever, you know, an alcoholic in the, in the true sense of the world. And I never had my, you know, you know, rock bottom moment, as many people describe it was just incremental. I just found myself drinking more and more My youth, it was, was never a problem. I could, I could manage, you know, I remember getting close to alcohol poisoning after an Oktoberfest. But the real epiphany came in moving from Singapore to Portugal in 2021. And wine in Portugal is the same price as water, fundamentally as it. In Singapore, Singapore wine had about a 300% tax on it. So I moved to Portugal in 2021 after having had some very significant surgery because they thought I had cancer. Good news. Turned out to just be benign. But I thought that my, my response to that would be to sort of come to Portugal, have my sea change and get all healthy. I came to Portugal and I'm like, well no, I should just live life. And I'm eating cheese, which was a fraction of the price here, that it was in and drinking wine, which was a fraction of the price and it was abundant. And I just found that I was drinking more and more and more. My wife, I was working from home as a writer and my wife was off at work and I would finish around six, open a bottle of red. She didn't get home till about 7:30, by which time she was lucky to get half a glass out of that bottle. And so I'd have to open a second bottle so that my wife could have a drink too. And then that was, that was it for a couple of years. Put on a bucket load of weight, the cheese to balance it. And then in a follow up from all of the surgery that I was, that I'd had in Singapore, they found out that my heart was pretty clogged. And the cardiologist said something very clever. She said, well, you could lose weight and you could stop drinking. She didn't say you must. If she'd said I must, I would probably have rejected the authority. But when she said you could, that played into my strength of self leadership, which was it's my choice. And I knew that the drinking was correlated to the increase in weight. And I went, yeah, I could. And that was my, that was my epiphany and that was my wake up moment.

Duncan [00:09:46]:
Yeah, yeah, no, no, forget the cheese and wine party thing. You know, I did a lot, a lot spell of every day is a cheese and wine party. So yeah, in fact I even had a halloumi period. But that's, that's an entirely different story. So it was just obviously becoming a bit of an issue. It was affecting your health. Yeah. So you, you made the decision that you could stop drinking and what, what did you do to kind of help you get through that?

Andrew Bryant [00:10:16]:
Well, I drove from a cardiologist. I mean it just, it just, it was an epiphany. I'm like when she said you could and I mean I've written books on self leadership. I speak on this. I had friends that had, had gone sober. So I knew I could, but I hadn't. And you know, at that moment it was really an identity. Point is that if I couldn't do this, everything I'd spoken about was false. Therefore I, I could, was, was a challenge, was such a powerful challenge. And I went, okay, I could. So I drove from a cardiologist to a. To a restaurant that I'd never been to before, but was on my list. Walked in and it was one of these sort of fast grill Portuguese places. And, you know, the package was, you know, you got the meal, the beer and the dessert for €10. And I walked in, got the meal, and I ended up having two beers. And I just said to myself, these are my last two beers. And they were my last two beers. The next day I said, okay, this is day one. And. And then sort of, that was a bit terrifying. And so I opened a journal. I know the power of journaling. And I went, okay, how do I feel about this? And I was like, well, I can do it, but what's going to come up? And I journaled, I think, for the next three months. And so interesting some of the stuff, you know, the associations. Oh, but I've got a wedding coming up. How can I go to a wedding and not drink champagne? You know, and my wife was first a bit challenged being Brazilian. You know, she. She drinks. You know, she drinks a lot of beer. And. And she's like, you're not going to do this forever, are you? And because it was threatening her a little bit, because if I gave up, am I going to be a wowzer and suddenly try and make her give up? So there was that, and. And she was saying, well, you could just have one. And so there was the. There was the voice of moderation. And I'm writing, you know, could I be moderate? And then I came up with this reframe. And I. I think I'm. I don't think it's original. Maybe I heard it somewhere else before, but it was like, if I have a drink at the weekend, that's like breaking up with a toxic girlfriend but then sleeping with her at the weekend. And I think it's been said before, but it was, you know, it came to me as a truth. And I'm like, no, I need to do this in totality. And then, you know, it's 30 days of sort of writing these. It starts to become a new identity. I am somebody that doesn't drink, you know, and are not on the wagon. And I think AA says, don't say that. You know, take on a new identity. I just don't drink. I don't have the first one. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Duncan [00:12:55]:
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I think that the whole piece around identity is so incredibly powerful, isn't it? And, you know, if you, if you think you're that kind of person, then you're going to be right. If you think you're the kind of person who doesn't belong in a gym, you aren't going to. Gonna go to the gym, are you? So. Yeah, yeah, no, that, That's. That's excellent. So really, I guess you took the stuff you already knew and applied it to. To. To. To. To drinking. You didn't have any kind of outside support, any communities or any. Or anything like that?

Andrew Bryant [00:13:30]:
Yeah, well, actually, one of my mentees, actually a guy called Nick Johnson in Singapore, he come to me for mentoring to. To get. Speaking because he had hit rock bottom. He was, you know, an expat living in Asia and was drinking way too much and had health issues and he went cold turkey and then. And then started running triathlons. And. And he had stopped. So, you know, I picked up the phone and said, hey, Nick, guess what? And he said, what? I said, look, I'm doing the sober thing. And he was super, super supportive. And so suddenly there was a flip. I'd helped him, now he was helping me. And it was just. Just blanket encouragement. There was. There was no advice. He did recommend that I read the AA book. And I don't know what it's called, but there's a book. And I did. I read. I think I read most of it. And it was. It was common sense. And I took away from that. Just don't have the first one, which is. Which is very powerful. So I had his support. And there was somebody else I remembered from. From Singapore who I knew had been. And I. I just emailed him and said, hey, you know. You know, I stopped and there was just this huge. So there was a sense of new community from the old community. And then my. I mentioned my wife was a little bit resistant at first because she thought I would proselytize, but she noticed I was actually nicer off the boot. And the strange realization was I used to take a drink to take the edge off, except it doesn't take the edge off, does it? It actually can make you a little bit cranky. And. And I was less re. You know, less edgy and less reactive. And so she became an advocate. So when I, you know, there were days when I'm like, you know, I'd had a rough day. I really could do a drink. And she goes, don't. And I'm like, yep, you're right. So suddenly she became a great supporter. Well, she's always, you know, she's my wife. She's always been a supporter. But she. She flipped to 100%, and I'm like, okay, well, that's it now. Now, not only is it my identity, but it's now my brand. And, you know, for me now to go back, there is no way back. I would have to say I was wrong. And, you know, our egos hate saying that. Right?

Duncan [00:15:45]:
Yeah. Yeah. I've had a bit of a thought about it, and I've decided alcohol is actually really brilliant. Although I do know what you mean about wives appreciating sober husbands. Yes, I. I have. One comes home and finds me hoovering rather than drinking. She's. She's very keen on that.

Andrew Bryant [00:16:04]:
But, I mean, you know, a lot of people say to you, you know, what did you give up? And I was like, no, it's not what I gave up. It's what I gained. Right. You know, and your listeners will notice I gained better sleep. And that was. That was the biggest benefit. Right. I mean, I was getting up five times a night to pee, and I was really worried about my prostate. But it wasn't my prostate. It was the alcohol. And so there was that. And I was starting to get wicked acid reflux and. And that, you know, sometimes I'd get to enjoy the wine twice. I'm sorry if that's a bit on the nose. And I was like, no, that's awful. And that went away. So, you know, I went from, you know, a constant diet of Rennie's and Gaviscoms and none. And I went, wow. And I. You know, I immediately lost a bunch of weight, so that was cool. Unfortunately, it sort of stabilized at some point. I thought I'd. I'd just keep losing. But it found his new mean point, so I didn't give anything up. I gained a whole bunch of things. And then, of course, the more you read, I mean, I'd already had this health challenge with them thinking I had cancer, but I lost my. I lost my father to colorectal cancer. And I looked at the correlation between alcohol and colorectal cancer is very high. And I'm like, well, that's in my genes. Probably shouldn't. You know, let's take one more load off the body.

Duncan [00:17:27]:
Yeah, I mean. I mean, liver and breast. But the rest of the cancers that it's very highly correlated with are all digestive tract things, aren't they? So. Yep.

Andrew Bryant [00:17:37]:
Well, and I thought. I mean, this. This was. I don't know if there's any medicine behind this, but, you know, they. You know, when they. When they discovered my heart was clogged they put me on statins of course to reduce cholesterol. I'm like, well that's one extra load on the liver, right? So I was like well I don't want to, I don't want to overload my liver, right? So, so I mean there's lots of medical stuff but, but what we know is that information doesn't create the behavior change, right? You know, otherwise those pictures on packets of smoking would stop people smoking. Right? You have to have. Whether it's a, whether it's a, you know, whether it, it's a rock bottom moment or it's. As I had an epiphany. It has to be an, an emotional identity shift is, is my experience. So I knew that information before, but that information became confirming after I made the decision and after the identity shifted.

Duncan [00:18:28]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of value in the information but you need to be in the right place to receive it as the bottom line, isn't it? Okay, so Bjorn keeps tapping me on the shoulder because he wants to get a word in edgeway. So I'm just going to let him very quickly grab the mic.

Bjorn [00:18:45]:
Don't forget to check out flatpaksober.com it's like the Lingoberry jam for your meatballs. It's packed with tips, tricks and tactics to help you design your alcohol free life. You'll get sneak peeks, exclusive content, great offers and even merch. Experience the wonderful AF. Visit flatpacksober.com welcome back everybody.

Duncan [00:19:08]:
I'm joined today by Andrew Bryant, a speaker, an author and a general all round good guy. So you mentioned this phrase self leadership a few times. That's something that you've talked about, you know, on the subject, being on stages talking about it. One of the things I noticed was you sort of say that self leadership is a practice. Be quite interested in hearing a bit more about that because I was wondering whether maybe there's a parallel with sobriety being a bit of a practice as well.

Andrew Bryant [00:19:40]:
Oh absolutely. So I've been talking about self leadership since the late 90s and I was approached by Dr. Anna Kazan from the US well actually she's Brazilian but she was living in the US and she'd read some of my, my writings on it and she said I've done my PhD in self regulation and self regulation obviously is emotional control but it has particular elements in chronic disease. Right. So if you're diabetic you have to self regulate your glucose. Anyway, so we started talking online and we agreed to write A book. And in 2012, out came self leadership. How to become a more Successful, Efficient and Effective Leader from the Inside out. I apologize for the length of the subtitle, but that was the publisher. Anywho, in the book, Anna and I define self leadership as a practice, the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and actions toward your objectives. So it is a practice of influencing our thinking, feeling and actions. Just as taking a shower is a practice. You know, if you take a shower in the morning, you smell pretty good and. But if you don't take a shower for a couple of days, we all know what the outcome of that is. You insert cleaning your teeth, same result. We are constantly having thoughts and feelings in response to inner narratives and outer experiences. We need to constantly practice being intentional. Where is this thinking taking me? You know, is that taking me towards my objectives and objectives is the best version of me. So typically we think about goal setting. Here's what I want to have. But in self leadership, we look at who do I want to be that would have those things right. So it's very much a being, it's a future self. And so as a self leader, we know we're setting an intention. I want to be influential or confident or I want to be wealthy or thin or whatever, but that I have to be somebody to have those results. And to do that, I have to think a certain way, feel a certain way, take certain actions. And so it is a practice. I've been, as I said, writing, speaking, coaching about it since the 90s. Does that mean I don't have the odd meltdown? And the answer is of course no. I am human and I will have the odd meltdown. And my Brazilian wife will then say, go self leadership yourself. And I'm chagrined. And I go back and get back into emotional control again.

Duncan [00:22:09]:
Yes. Yeah, it's rather annoying when people point out that we ought to take our own advice, particularly when we happen to be married to them. That's an extra layer of all of that sort of stuff. I mean that, that for me, that, that there's an awful lot of parallels in the way you got sober. You know, it was about being more intentional about the way you thought about it to achieve a particular outcome which really involved you becoming the kind of person who doesn't drink.

Andrew Bryant [00:22:40]:
Surprise, surprise. I did actually take a dose of biomedicine, which is why, as I said, when the, when the cardiologist said you could do it, it was so powerful. If she had said to me, you must do it, I would have resisted that. I'm working on my fifth book at the moment, which is called Potentialize, and it's all about human potential. And I've actually, there's still a self leadership theme in this and there's a little section called the Curious Case of Broccoli. And the point that I'm making in this section of the book is that we are not necessarily our genesis. Yes, genes lead us into a certain situation, but there's lots of evidence that we can actually turn and turn off our own genetic makeup, just like choosing our algorithm on Netflix. And broccoli is interesting because there is a genetic receptor. Some people find broccoli very tasty, and some people find broccoli obnoxious. And there's lots of research around how do you get kids to eat broccoli? And if any parent watching this has tried to get their kids to eat broccoli, and if you tell your kids to eat broccoli and they think it sucks, that won't work. Right. And so, you know, the kids, you know, you have to introduce it to kids that it's their choice. You can't force it. You can. And you have to role model what good eating broccoli looks like. And you might have to sweeten the deal a little bit, you know, add some butter to it, add some spice or something so that it doesn't taste as bad to them. But forcing them to eat broccoli 100% does not work. Anybody watching this that has found that worked, you know, feel free to write in the comments.

Duncan [00:24:20]:
Yeah, my daughter eats a lot of broccoli. I'm not boasting or anything because I eat a lot of broccoli. And I think that kind of role modeling thing is so important, isn't it? The one I always noticed, I saw yesterday, this family cycled past. The kids were wearing high vis jackets and cycle helmets. The mum was wearing, you know, a flowery dress.

Andrew Bryant [00:24:43]:
Yeah.

Duncan [00:24:44]:
And it's. Well, they're not going to keep wearing those high vis jackets and cycle helmets for very long, are they? Because as soon as you stop forcing them to put them on, they're going to behave like you, aren't they?

Andrew Bryant [00:24:54]:
Yeah. Well, and again, you know, getting them to, getting them to wear them because they want to wear them is the, this is the, the six. So, you know, a quarter self leadership is autonomy, you know, from the Latin self rule. And you know, let's switch this from a, from a podcast on sobriety to a PODC passed on parenting. But, you know, the teenage years are the child trying to claim their own Autonomy, right? From 2 years old, children start saying, mine, right? The terrible twos is around ownership, mine. And no. And. And we, but we, we try to socialize them. So by saying, don't you say no to your father or mother, and you must share. And so kids become compliant. And then in their teenage years, there's the rebellion because they go, well, hang on, they're reclaiming. This is me. I have a son turning 18 this month, and he's put a bolt through his eye and a ring through his nose and not my fashion choices, but he's turning 18. There's nothing I can say other than, hey, I actually stuck an earring in when I was 18. It was my act of rebellion. And if I make it an act of rebellion against me, well, it's just going to reinforce the behavior. So autonomy, sense of self, rule, we all have this inner desire for it, but within, from some safe boundaries. Right? So the real secret in the leadership work I do is how do you give people autonomy but create a sandbox where that autonomy is safe within certain boundaries? Because if you go over the edge of that, then there's clear danger.

Duncan [00:26:31]:
Yeah, yeah, Tim, I know quite a long subtitle to your first book, but that idea, you know, working from the inside out, I think that's. That's very powerful, isn't it? Because quite often we find it easier to talk about what's going on on the outside. But if you just tell people to journal, for example, they are unlikely to start doing it. So how do people kind of start working on that? Kind of the mastering the inner game, as it were?

Andrew Bryant [00:27:02]:
Okay, well, it's not one size fits all for this one. I mean, obviously I had learned to journal a narrative as part of my work on self leadership. To your point is what's going on the inside out is a lot of us, we're all dopamine addicts these days with our phones and screens, et cetera, and we don't have a lot of time to think about, how do I feel about this? As a coach, I work with CEOs of famous companies and I'll say, well, how do you feel about it? And surprisingly, they don't have much of a vocabulary. And yeah, I remember when my kids were primary school and they came out with little charts with, you know, little Mr. Men with, you know, this is happy and this is sad, and this is. You ask an adult today, how do you feel about that? And you're likely to get, okay, all right. Under the Circumstances, you know, and, and, but how do you actually feel? Are you excited? Are you frustrated? Are you irritated? You know, are you perplexed? You know, that we, we lack a vocabulary to actually connect with the inner sensation. And real change doesn't happen until we. We get in touch with how does that feel. And, and so, as a coach, this is what I really force. I mean, it's almost therapy, but it's, you know, having said don't force, but I would, you know, really turn up the catalytic heat, as it were, to say, come on, tell me, how does that feel? You know, do you know, do I have to? You know, and there have been times I've given people a list of words. It's like, pick a word, right? But okay doesn't cut it. And it's really interesting, you know, these, these tough Silicon Valley CEOs, so how do you feel? And I've seen them really struggle, and it can very quickly become a, you know, a Kleenex moment when they actually get in touch because we have so many layers of mask and protection on board to say, how do we really feel? And to actually say, I'm actually scared I might not be able to complete this sobriety journey, you know, that. That's a breakthrough right there.

Duncan [00:29:05]:
Yeah, it's that kind of classic idea that if you ask most people how they feel, they will either say sad, mad, or glad, won't they? I mean, it's. It's like that is the palette of emotions that most people have. And part of, you know, sobriety, I think, is reconnecting with those emotions and understanding the nuance. And, you know, are you. Are you just angry or maybe are you frustrated? You know, is there, you know, what really, really getting down into it? I think that's so important because obviously, if you spend years and years and years trying to mask those emotions with alcohol, you have to find a way of dealing with them when they do come up. And I guess that touches on all of the work you do around self regulation as well.

Andrew Bryant [00:29:52]:
Sure. And, you know, I want to say from a personal experience and your listeners, who are the majority, so. But I imagine you recognize this. You know, one of the early sensations I had in getting off alcohol and I was driving, and I got this realization. I was. I'm like, I'm. I was driving somewhere and it was sunny day, and I was. I was. I felt I'm high. You know, I. I'm high on life. And. And then obviously you. Then you have a down day and you. And I realized that my Emotional palette or my emotional range had exp. My highs were higher and my lows were lower, but they didn't last as long. So whilst, you know, you'd have a damn day right where I. If I had a rough day, I would have a few drinks and. And you do that to numb it, but you don't then process it. But if at the end of the day I suddenly, I'm starting to train myself, okay, it's a rough day, how do I feel about this? Then I would make different choices. I'd go for a swim or go for a walk to process the emotion I got through. And the next day I felt fine. I didn't have hangover. And so it's huge. I think it was the psychologist Erich Fromm was talking in the early 19th century about how psychology had become an element of opium for the masses in the. Trying to get us to put up with the boredom of industrial work or post industrial work that we were. We were not experiencing life in its full dimension. And I think being sober is the key to that. And I, I hope everybody watching that is experiencing a much greater palette than when we were drinking.

Duncan [00:31:30]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Certainly everybody I've ever interviewed on this podcast has said words to words to that effect. Now, speaking of high emotions, visiting Ikea now, I sort of have a feeling I know the answer to this question. Have you ever dwelt in IKEA long enough to try the meatballs?

Andrew Bryant [00:31:53]:
Oh, yes, I have. I do like them.

Duncan [00:31:56]:
Okay. Do you know about 50% of people actually like the meatballs? Which is a shame, because it sort of ruins my next question. My theory is that nobody really likes the meatballs. They just feel they have to eat them when they're at ikea. It's just like the thing that you have to do. You don't really like it. You just gotta do it. And that sort of leads me into our final question for you today, which is, what is the one. One thing people should do when they're sober even though they don't want to do it? That thing that we really kind of try and put off that we really don't want to do, but we should do once we've got sober?

Andrew Bryant [00:32:30]:
I don't know that I really understand the question, because what should we do? Because we don't have to do anything. I mean, the whole point about sobriety is that autonomy is that ownership. There's nothing that we must do other than not have the first drink. Right. So do you want to reframe the question?

Duncan [00:32:50]:
I think you could argue that embracing autonomy is the thing that everybody should do when they get sober. That sounds like a good answer.

Andrew Bryant [00:33:00]:
Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, I think that's, I mean, we realized. The point being is if you've seen this on sober memes, but I mean, if you can stop drinking when all around you are guilting you to say that you should be partaking of this drug and you say against the herd mentality, this is what you should do. If you can do that in your life and overcome those frames of mind, what else can you do? And that opens you up to a whole bunch of possibilities. My friend Nick Johnson, who actually wrote a book on executive loneliness and now calls himself a sober coach, you know, he went off and started running marathons after being, you know, overweight and whatever. I haven't done anything as extreme as that. You know, I'm, I'm quite happy doing what I do, but there's nothing that I can't do if I, if I've overcome this as nothing else.

Duncan [00:33:58]:
And I, I do, I, I did spot the very, very coachy moment there. Like, what else can you do? That's like those brilliant coaching questions. That is, that's a great, it's a great thought to pop in people's mind kind of towards the end. But before I let you go, I would like you to just share where people can find out more about the wonderful work that you're doing.

Andrew Bryant [00:34:21]:
It's very easy. SelfLeadership.com One word. I own the domain and of course LinkedIn is my social platform of choice. Although I'm thinking about pivoting a little bit to substack. But yes. SelfLeadership.com or find me on LinkedIn and Connect.

Duncan [00:34:37]:
Perfect. Well, look, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much so much for sharing your wisdom and your insight.

Andrew Bryant [00:34:44]:
My absolute pleasure. Duncan.

Bjorn [00:34:46]:
We're out of time, but for some reason, we still have a few screws left over. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate a five star rating on your favorite podcast platform. Help us Spread a Flatpak love. Until next time, enjoy the wonderful aforementioned.

Andrew Bryant [00:35:04]:
I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we did bringing it to you. If you love what you're hearing and want to stay updated, join the Flatpak sober community on Facebook. Don't forget to click the subscribe button.