Alcohol-Free 3 Years — He Didn't See the Danger

0:00This guy is three years alcohol free. He said he's free from anxiety. He also said that he's on benzodiazepines. Now both of those things can't be doing what he thinks they're doing. And here's the entire comment, right? It will be three years on August 3rd. I sacrificed my friendships to quit drinking and gained a life free from anxiety. All that's left is benzodiazepines. Now the bones of this is three years on August 3rd. Some friendships ended, he reports no anxiety. He's currently taking benzodiazepines. That's four facts, right? Four real facts, all of his. And I'm not disputing any of these things. But there's a few things that I'd like to cover here. First, three years brilliant, right? You've done so much good in your life, just not having alcohol in your system. And that's a great way, right? Not only in terms of the physical and mental benefits, many of those are also there because the habit is gone. The changes in your life, because you've changed that identity.

1:01You'll be the radically changed the alcohol identity or you've got really, really altogether. And hopefully you've got really, really good altogether. And one of the biggest parts of my job is to look at the stories that are underlying, whether it's in the short term that people find it very difficult to stop drinking alcohol, why they find it difficult, what they're saying to themselves. But also in the long term, especially when you get into the long term, I think those stories that you're telling yourself can really affect how you move forwards, how you think, how you do things, how you, the direction that you're taking. And a lot of the times, it's the stories that you are telling yourself internally, that you're not telling me about. But it's the words that you use, the phrases that you use that can be a big hint to the kind of thinking that is going underneath the surface. So I think this comment was a really good one in order to highlight three different things that I think a lot of people think about themselves when they stop drinking alcohol. The first one was the word sacrifice.

2:01Sacrifice assumes that the friendships were the price of stopping. That in some way you had to deliberately sacrifice the friendships in order to stop drinking alcohol, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to do that, right? You know, this is a choice that everyone has to make. You either stop drinking or you don't. And it's a choice that you can only do on your own, right? You're the only one who can not put the alcohol into your mouth or who can continue to put the alcohol into your mouth, right? So I'd like to give you one alternative. There's a lot of different alternatives. But an alternative reading of this is that these weren't friendships. They were drinking arrangements. And what ended them was the removal of the only thing that was holding them together, right? The booze, the bar, the habit, all of that stuff. It's the same facts, but very a very different way of looking at things. You know, I had to go through a very similar kind of a situation when I stopped drinking. We moved to Spain in 2011.

3:01And for the first year that we were here, I was drinking. And it was only after a lot of different, a lot of different soul searching moments that I finally came to that decision to stop drinking alcohol. But I left a lot of my mates behind in Ireland. So, you know, that kind of helped me to change things back then. For me, there's two different types of drinking friends. There's those drinking friends where alcohol is the only common denominator. There is nothing outside of that. You know, there is we drink together. And that's the only thing that we do together. There's other friendships where there's other things apart from the alcohol, right? You do other things apart from drinking, right? And it's that type of drinker where alcohol is the only thing. Once you take the alcohol out of that situation, what else is holding them together? One says, I gave up something good. And the other says, I got rid of people from my life who were really reinforcing that drink, inhabit all those years, right? They were helping me to drink. They were encouraging me to drink. They were encouraging me to drink more, right?

4:03That's in my life. Now, he's picking the first, without noticing that there's a choice, that there is a different type of friend. There's a choice to leave behind those friendships and not feel sorry for them, not feel any kind of remorse or guilt. You just drop them because they're not a part of your life anymore. They're not a part of that direction that you're going, that road that you're traveling. So, as a quick aside, a group video coaching starting up next. Monday, 17th of August, we've a few places left. If you're interested, click on the accelerator link in the description and you'll get all the details from that page. Another thing he mentioned was free from anxiety, wild-taken benzodiazepines. Right? Anxiety is a huge word. It's very broad, huge in scope, in what we, we each of us mean by the word anxiety. Right? Drink in, taking benzos. These can flatten or mute your feelings, right? So, you don't. They cure the symptoms of the problems that you have in life.

5:05They cure the symptoms of the anxiety that you're feeling in life. And the problem with taking any drug to blunt your feelings in the long term especially, is that it creates this, its own microcosm and its own set of problems. And most of these problems cannot be solved from within the compounds of the habit itself. So, you can't solve a lot of the problems that are being caused by your drinking habit inside of that drinking habit. You can't solve a lot of the problems that are being caused through your benzodiazepine habit inside of that habit. And all of the problems that you're creating within that habit add to the feelings of anxiety. Or they add to the feelings of helplessness because of that situation that you can't solve the problems while you're within the habit that is causing the problems. Right? So, here's what matters in this case. The guy that's making this comment is attributing a result to stop and drink an alcohol

6:07that taking benzodiazepines would produce on its own. Right? That feeling of relaxation, that feeling of, you know, not having any problems. And he can't tell from the inside which is which, what's the result of stopping drinking and what is the result of taking benzodiazepines? Nobody can tell that, right? Once you're inside of that. So, the claim isn't false, it's just untestable in its current conditions. The second thing about this statement and I think this one is much deeper is, why would you want to be free from anxiety anyway? When you feel anxiety, this is normal. It's a signal, it's information. It's supposed to happen because it's really useful, in your life, it's your system telling you that something needs attention. Not that, it's a fault, that it's a sign that everything's working well. What's bad isn't anxiety, it's the chronic anxiety, right? It's the standing, the grinding all day. That version that never resolves itself,

7:08that never points at anything. That's one of the biggest problems that comes along with long-term use of any drug taking, right? It's one that gets solved mostly when you stop, but you have to put the work into it, right? And you have to do it kind of called Turkey without the use of any other drugs. Like I said, each drug has got its own microcosm within it that stops you from thinking normal, from acting normal, from taking directions, that are normal, that are outside of, that are not outside of this box that you're putting yourself in with alcohol. You know, when these two kind of systems collapse together, right there, the normal anxiety that you're supposed to feel and the anxiety that has become chronic in your life, when you decide anxiety itself is the enemy, you go looking for something that kills the whole system and you get rid of, you're trying to get rid of the bad part of this, the chronic anxiety, but you're trying to get rid of the good part as well. That's how most people end up self-medicating. It's the signal that is pushing you in that direction.

8:11So, you have to stand back and start reading that signal instead of trying to block it out. And it's something I would be very careful about. You know, most people try to get rid of all the anxiety, like I said, only driving themselves back to the drugs because it's an impossible task. You know, what's needed is an understanding and reframing of the anxiety, rather than just trying to get rid of the symptoms of it. You know, you're looking at the problems that are underlined the anxiety, the problems that are created in your life. A lot of the time when I'm feeling anxious about anything, I know that I'm on the right track. You know, it's something, it's an interpretation, right there I'm feeling. So, if I'm feeling anxiety, I'll always look at it in terms of how am I interpreting this, right? I look at the situation that I'm in and reinterpret things as maybe excitement or nervousness. I mean, nervousness is a good one where you're feeling anxious about something just because it narrows it down a little bit more.

9:11I know the thing that you can do is just to look at the specific situation that you're in. Look at the specific things that you're feeling. Look at the thoughts that you're thinking and try and look at it from that perspective and you know, like reinterpret it from there. You know, once you can isolate the specific examples in your own life, then you stop seeing it as something that is chronic in your life and instead you start seeing it as something that is in the moment and you can handle it. So, it just changes the way that I'm thinking. It changes the way that changes the next steps that I'm gonna take, changes the direction that I'm gonna take, right? And everything, all of this is connected. And the last thing I wanna talk to you about is when he says, all that's left, all that's left is to get rid of the benzodiazepines. And this sounds like it's a throw I come in. The residue that needs to be dealt with the last item that's on his list, that it's small, that it's almost done.

10:13And coming off the benzos isn't the small item. It's not the last item that you have to deal with, right? It's the same family, benzos are the same family as alcohol, right? So that withdrawal is gonna be the same type that can cause seizures. And the kind that can genuinely kill you if it's done wrongly if you're that hooked into them, that it's, so if you try and come off them too fast. And the person most at risk of doing this kind of stuff or the risk is heightened when you've got one of those things behind you, three years behind you. And you already think that you've done the hard part. You know, just go down, you have the doctor, the person who's prescribing any of these drugs, don't go down and you're on, you know, go to that person and let them help you with it, right? So that's my final message on that. And I think it's something that you, anybody needs to take seriously if you're, if you've been using something, especially using something to, um, just stop drinking.

11:13Now I'm presuming that that's already in check with you and that you're already gonna put those into, and that into effect. So I'll show it up about that now. The overall message I wanted to leave you with is this. Our aim is not to feel nothing. It's to get to a place where you can feel the anxiety, you can feel the nervousness, you can feel all of the feelings and emotions that we were meant to feel and work with them naturally, normally without chemicals. You know, the destination is a life where you get up every morning and you're looking forward to the day, right? You're contented that you're comfortable with your emotions and your feelings. So in the comments, drop the sentence you've told yourself about drinking the one that sounds like a fact and let's take a look at it, see if I can help. bolster your strong position in this journey. Take care of yourself and I will speak to you again soon. I'm with an upwards, bye now.