OFF TOPIC, Kinda: Could One Person Take Down the Alcohol Industry?

Yes, I’m talking about alcohol again. Last episode I talked about addiction in the trades and what the person trapped inside it is actually going through. 

This time, I’m going after the culture and the industry that have made alcohol so normal in our shops, homes, and lives. 

It may be off topic, but not really; it destroys our workers, families, careers, and businesses, and nobody is talking about it enough. So I am. 

The question is; could one person actually start taking down the alcohol industry? 

Metal Fabrication Nation with Greg Sheldon. Real talk for welders, fabricators, shop owners, and the next generation of tradespeople. Built on the belief that AI won’t replace real tradespeople, and the trades aren’t a backup plan; they’re the backbone. 

Greg reminds welders, fabricators, foremen, shop owners, and tradespeople that they are not behind the times — they are building the future. Follow the show, share it with someone in the trade, and keep pushing the industry forward. Want to see what bad quoting may be costing your shop? Get the free calculator and Baseline Efficiency Report here: https://gregsheldon.github.io/metalfabexcel/calculator.html

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Welcome back to Metal Fabrication Nation. This is Greg Sheldon. So, yes, I'm going to talk about alcohol again today, and I know this is called Metal Fabrication Nation. And some of you are probably waiting for me to get back into welding, estimating shop problems, fabrication, and the actual hands-on side of this industry, and I will. But last episode I talked about addiction in the metal trades and what a person inside addiction is actually going through, why they keep returning to something they hate, the dangers of withdrawal, and what leadership should be doing when somebody in the shop is struggling. And after recording that episode, I realized I wasn't finished with the subject. Not even close, because alcohol is so dominant in our industry that we barely even notice it anymore. It's at the end of the shift, the company Christmas party, the golf tournament, the camp, the hockey game, the bar, and for a lot of people, it follows them home and starts destroying things nobody at work ever sees. So, yes, I'm talking about alcohol again. Not because I'm trying to turn this into an addiction podcast and not because I think I'm better than anybody, because I'm absolutely not. I'm talking about it because it ruins workers, marriages, families, careers, businesses, and lives. And almost nobody in our industry is willing to talk about it honestly. Somebody needs to, so I'm doing it. I will get back to welding and fabrication and all the hands-on things that make this industry what it is, but this is equally as important because what good is building the world if the people building it are quietly destroying themselves? So today, I want to ask a bigger question. How could one person take down the alcohol industry? I'm not talking about violence, destroying property, shutting down breweries, or anything ridiculous like that. I'm talking about taking down the belief system that keeps the whole thing alive. Because alcohol is not just a product anymore. It's been worked into everything. You're happy, have a drink. You're sad, have a drink. You got the contract, have a drink. You lost the contract, have a drink. You got married, everybody drinks. You get divorced. Well, apparently that's another reason to drink. Your team wins, you drink. Your team loses, you drink even more. So somehow the same product became the answer to every single emotion a human being can have. And nobody stops and says, Well, this is a little strange, isn't it? Like, how did this happen? How did we get to a point where somebody says they don't drink and they're the one who has to explain themselves? You don't go to a party and say, no thanks, I don't smoke crack, and have everybody say, Come on, Greg, just have a little bit. Don't be boring. But with alcohol, that's normal. You say, no, I'm not drinking tonight, and everybody wants to know why. Are you sick? Are you on medication? Did something happen? Are you an alcoholic? Like maybe I just don't want to drink something that's going to make tomorrow worse. Maybe I don't want to rent a good feeling tonight and pay it back with interest in the morning. And I think that's the part the alcohol industry really does not want people thinking about. They want you thinking about the first drink. They don't want you thinking about the whole experience. The advertisement is always the first hour. Everybody's smiling, everybody looks great, nobody has a problem, the music is good, the beach is beautiful, and apparently nobody in alcohol commercials ever has to wake up the next morning. Nobody checks their phone and thinks, what did I say last night? Nobody misses work. Nobody starts an argument, nobody spends money they didn't have, nobody disappoints their kids, nobody destroys a relationship. That part just somehow never makes it into the commercial. They sell the first hour, and everybody else gets stuck dealing with the next 24. And then they put drink responsibly at the bottom of the screen. Like that wipes their hands clean of the whole thing. I mean, think about that slogan. They advertise it during sports, concerts, festivals, movies, television, social media, weddings, holidays, restaurants, and basically every event where human beings gather. And then they say, but be responsible. It's a perfect business model. They get credit for the fun, and you get blamed for the damage. Now I'm not saying the company physically pours the drink down your throat. Obviously, people have responsibility for their own choices. I believe that. But let's stop pretending these companies make billions of dollars because everybody has one glass of wine at Christmas and then forgets alcohol exists for the rest of the year. That's not where the money is. The money is in repetition, the money is in routine. Friday night turns into Thursday night, the weekend turns into a few drinks after work, a few drinks to relax turns into needing a few drinks to shut your brain off. Then the thing you started using to escape stress starts creating more of the stress you're trying to escape from. That's a pretty good customer retention system, if you think about it. The product creates a problem, temporarily numbs the problem, and then sells itself to you again as the solution. And I know this is going to make some people angry because alcohol is one of those things you're apparently not allowed to criticize. People can say anything they want about cigarettes, fast food, sugar, pharmaceutical companies, social media, gambling, whatever. But when you start talking honestly about alcohol, somebody immediately says, Well, I can handle it. Okay, maybe you can. That's not really the point. Some people can work 70 hours a week and not get divorced. That doesn't mean it's a good system. Some people can ignore every safety procedure in the shop and never lose a finger. That doesn't make it intelligent. The question isn't whether every person who drinks ruins their life. Obviously they don't. The question is why we've built this massive culture around a product that can take so much from people and then act like the product is harmless and the person is the entire problem. And this is where it gets into metal fabrication and the trades. Because we have a weird relationship with alcohol. We'll sit through a safety meeting about gloves, glasses, harnesses, lockout procedures, forklift lanes, lifting plans, and all this stuff. We'll shut down a job because somebody isn't tied off properly, and we should. But then a guy comes into the shop Monday morning after drinking all weekend, he's exhausted, he barely slept, his hands are shaking, his head's not right, and everybody laughs. Big weekend, buddy. Need a little hair of the dog? That's just what welders do. No, it isn't. That's not welding culture, that's alcohol culture that moved into the shop and convinced us it belonged there. Working hard does not mean you have to destroy yourself after work. Being a tradesman does not mean you need to drink your paycheck. Coming in half dead on Monday is not a sign that you're tough. It means something has control over you, and we've been trained to laugh at it because laughing is easier than admitting what we're looking at. We call it blowing off steam, we call it having a good time, we call it work hard, play hard. But sometimes it's a man who doesn't know how to sit alone with his own thoughts. Sometimes it's somebody trying to shut off anxiety, sometimes it's a person whose marriage is falling apart. Sometimes it's a worker who's in pain every day and doesn't know what else to do. And instead of helping him, we hand him another drink and call it bonding. That's not helping, that's keeping the cycle going. And the industry loves that tough guy image. They've tied drinking to masculinity, sports, success, confidence, sex, friendship, and freedom. But what kind of freedom is it if you can't go to a barbecue without it? What kind of confidence requires three drinks before you can talk to people? What kind of relaxation leaves you more anxious the next day? I mean, maybe alcohol doesn't give you confidence. Maybe it just temporarily removes your concern about the consequences, and those are not the same thing. Real confidence is being able to walk into a room sober and not care whether anybody thinks you're boring. Real confidence is dealing with your life instead of constantly trying to leave it for a few hours. Real confidence is remembering what you said, keeping the promises you made, and waking up without that awful feeling that you might have damaged something you care about. The alcohol industry sells artificial courage in a bottle and then sends the invoice the next morning. And I think one of the biggest lies is that sobriety is boring. Of course, the alcohol industry wants sobriety to look boring. Sobriety is terrible for business. A person who starts sleeping properly is a lost customer. A person who learns how to handle stress is a lost customer. Somebody who deals with their trauma, gets their health back, reconnects with their family, starts training, starts building something, starts praying, starts thinking clearly, that person is dangerous to the alcohol industry because now they're living proof that the product wasn't adding what they thought it was adding. Maybe it was taking things away and then convincing them they needed more. And look, I'm not standing here pretending I'm perfect. I'm far from perfect. I have used things in my life to escape. We all do it in different ways. Some people use alcohol, some use food, work, money, relationships, social media, pornography, gambling, whatever it is. We don't like sitting in discomfort. I understand that. But alcohol is different because we celebrate the escape, we advertise it, we sponsor it, we build entire events around it, we give it as a gift, we bring it into our homes and put it on display. Then when it destroys somebody, everybody says, well, he should have known better. So, how does one person take down that industry? You don't start by trying to ban everything. That would probably backfire anyway. You start by making people see it differently. That's how cultural change happens. You say the thing everybody knows but doesn't want to say. You stop treating hangovers like comedy. You stop treating a case of beer as the normal reward for a hard week. You stop telling the apprentice that drinking until he can't remember the night is some kind of initiation into the trade. You stop making the sober person feel like the weird one. One shop owner changes how company events are run. One foreman notices the guy who's struggling and talks to him like a human being instead of embarrassing him in front of the crew. One father decides the pattern ends with him. One worker says, I'm not giving another weekend to this. One podcast episode gets somebody thinking, maybe I'm not relaxing, maybe I'm avoiding, maybe this isn't helping anymore. And then that person talks to somebody else. That's how one person starts taking down an industry, not by attacking the buildings, by attacking the lie, because the alcohol industry has all kinds of money, it has advertisements, lobbyists, celebrities, stadium sponsorships, restaurants, stores, traditions, and generations of people saying, This is just what we do. But it has one weakness. It needs you to keep buying, it needs the next drink, it needs you to believe the weekend isn't complete without it, it needs you to believe you're more interesting with it, more relaxed with it, more social with it, more confident with it. And what happens when enough people realize none of that is true? What happens when people start looking at the whole night instead of the first 20 minutes? What happens when the trades stop wearing addiction like a badge of honor? What happens when the strongest guy in the shop isn't the guy who can drink everybody under the table, but the guy who can face his life without running from it? That is what the alcohol industry won't like. They don't care about somebody yelling outside a liquor store. They care about people waking up, they care about people adding up the real cost. Not just the bottle, but the missed mornings, the fights, the anxiety, the lost work, the relationships, the promises, the opportunities, the businesses that never got built, the kids who watched somebody slowly become a different person. Ask one family that has lived through it, then listen to the rest without interrupting. The child who could tell what kind of night it was going to be by the sound of the door opening, the spouse waiting to see which version of the person came home, the employer who covered the same Monday absence again and again until they couldn't do it anymore, the fabricator who was unbelievably talented but became unreliable, the person who started drinking because it was fun and eventually drank because not drinking felt worse. Those are the parts that never make it onto the billboard. And I'm not saying every drink leads there. I am saying an honest conversation has to include where the road can go. So, could one person take down the whole alcohol industry? Probably not alone. But every major change started with somebody who got tired of pretending something was normal. One person says it out loud, one person refuses to keep funding it, one person changes a shop, a family, a group of friends, maybe an industry. And maybe the alcohol industry doesn't disappear, but maybe it loses its grip, maybe it stops being automatic, maybe people finally see it as a choice instead of a requirement. Maybe the next generation of welders doesn't grow up believing that becoming good at the trade also means becoming good at destroying yourself. That's where I'd start, not with government, not with some massive organization. I'd start with one person looking at the bottle and saying, You're not giving me peace, you're lending me escape, and you are charging way too much for it, and I am done paying. Alright, folks, that's it for this episode. I hope you got something really valuable out of it, and God bless y'all.