November 25, 2025 • 11 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the Stop Drinking Podcast, where we help
you make stopping drinking asimple, logical, and easy
decision.
We help you with tips, tools,and strategies to start living
your best life when alcoholfree.
If you want to learn more aboutStop Drinking Coaching, then
head over to www.soberclear.com.
(00:22):
What if I told you that alcoholcravings aren't even real?
And all you need is four secondsto eradicate alcohol cravings
forever.
Now, saying something like thatmight get me in trouble, but
what I'm about to show you todayis how you can defeat alcohol
cravings and stopping drinkingwill feel like a walk in the
park.
The cravings will come and thenthey'll just immediately bounce
(00:45):
off you.
I know this works because thisis what happened in my own life.
After 10 years of struggling tonot drink alcohol, this was the
final shift that just fixed itfor me.
But also, this has worked forhundreds of my clients.
People like John, anentrepreneur who's two and a
half years sober.
This has worked for him.
It also worked for Gordon, who'sa construction contractor who's
now 16 months without a drop.
(01:06):
And it also worked for Ramona,who said this approach has made
stopping drinking the easiestthing she's ever done in her
life.
It's hundreds of others as well.
If we've not met yet, my name isLeon Sylvester.
I'm the founder ofsoberclear.com.
We're a coaching company thathelps business people and
professionals get control oftheir drinking quickly.
So the stuff that I'm gonnashare with you is the stuff that
I share with my clients and alsothe stuff I've been applying for
(01:29):
the past seven years.
So let's dive into things.
When it comes to stoppingdrinking and alcohol cravings,
society has got it backwards.
Society believes that alcoholcravings are something that you
battle for the rest of yourlife.
It's a natural part of notdrinking.
You go through everyday life andthen all of a sudden, out of
nowhere, you see alcohol, youmake a positive association with
(01:49):
it, and then bam, you want todrink.
And society and the traditionalways of stopping drinking will
all have you believe that thisis okay and it's normal.
Think about it like this (01:58):
we get told that people who are in
recovery are gonna be inrecovery for the rest of their
life.
So it's a lifelong disease withno known cure.
I used to believe this, I knownow that it's not true.
Alcoholics Anonymous, what didthey say?
Well, one day at a time.
Today I'm just not gonna drink.
And then we use willpower,right?
When we fight through the urgewith willpower, we get cravings
(02:19):
and we just blast through them.
And all of these things arereinforcing the idea that
cravings are gonna be thereforever.
And it's because we're using thewrong methods.
Now, don't get me wrong, whenpeople stop drinking alcohol,
there is an element of physicalwithdrawal.
It can last three to seven days,sometimes longer.
There are people out there thatdo need a medical detox.
And during this process, yourbody will crave alcohol.
(02:42):
It's a physical response to allof these changes that are
happening in your body with yourneurotransmitters, with various
chemicals.
Everything's out of whack andyou want to go back to that
homeostasis that alcohol wascreating, at least what you
thought it was creating.
Your body will have gotaccustomed to a drug, so then
when you remove the drug, itgoes crazy.
But after that process is done,once the healing is finished and
(03:03):
the brain's starting tonormalize, then the cravings
become psychological.
And once you can fix yourpsychology and your worldview,
you will become one of thepeople who's able to not drink
alcohol for the rest of theirlife without thinking about it,
rather than one of those peoplethat's struggling, that's
fighting, that's alwayscomplaining about not being able
to drink.
I don't want you to be one ofthose people.
I want you to be one of thosepeople that just knock this out
(03:25):
of the park and move on withtheir life.
See, but all that's happeningwhen somebody has these
psychological cravings issomething will come up in the
body.
And what ends up happening is wesee alcohol enhances that
situation or that negativefeeling.
It can be various factors.
But as long as we see alcohol assomething that is going to
improve some area of our life orreduce suffering in some area of
(03:47):
our life, as long as we makethat link, we will always crave
alcohol.
Once you can eradicate thatlink, that's when it's just
like, why would I even want todo it?
So let's unpack three of thebiggest triggers and let's start
formulating a new, morerealistic worldview where you
stop seeing alcohol as thesolution to these three
problems.
If you've read any popular stopdrinking books, these ideas,
(04:08):
they might not be new to you,but these things need
reinforcing.
At the end of the day, the ideasthat I share, that other people
on the internet share, thatbooks have shared, you're
combating billions and billionsof dollars spent on alcohol
marketing and this propagandathat gets pushed on you all the
time.
So even if you've heard theseideas before, just stick with
them.
But the first thing is this ideathat alcohol and relaxation have
(04:31):
a link.
We think that when we get homeafter a hard day, you know, when
we really want to just chill outand I don't know, go on a
vacation and lie by the pool, westart to make this association
that somehow, if we drinkalcohol, we're going to feel
more relaxed.
And this is very common.
And a lot of people do this.
They chill out because they justwant to relax.
But there was a time in yourlife when you didn't drink
(04:53):
alcohol and you were perfectlyrelaxed.
It might have been a long timeago now, but when you were a
child, you were perfectlycapable of relaxing.
You never felt the need to takea drug to help you relax.
So there was a time in your lifewhere it was entirely possible
for you to just relax.
Now, you could say, well, Ihadn't have responsibilities
then.
You know, I've got a career now,I've got a family, but it
(05:14):
doesn't matter because this drugdoesn't relax you at all.
How can something that disruptsyour sleep, your REM sleep in
the second half of your nightrelax you?
Waking up, having that terriblesleep, and just, you know,
struggling to open your eyes,needing a drink of water.
When I drank alcohol, it wouldcreate a lot of anxiety.
The next day, cortisol spikes.
How is that relaxing?
See, this creates one of themost vicious cycles ever known.
(05:37):
You end up drinking alcohol andthen feeling relaxed.
I'm not gonna say that thatdoesn't happen.
Of course it happens.
But you might have heard thisbefore.
After that, what happens next?
Well, the next day, you don'tfeel so good.
Right?
You feel a bit anxious, you feela bit on edge, all because of
the previous drinks that you'vehad are now causing a feeling of
being unrelaxed.
So you drink.
And then, oh, I do feel relaxedagain.
(05:57):
I feel calm, I feel peaceful.
And then you wake up the nextmorning and not feeling quite
right, and then you drink again.
And now I've spelled it out abit clearer, you might start to
see the problem.
But you're creating a falseassociation with a drug that
makes you withdraw andrelaxation.
Things that truly relax youdon't have a rebound effect.
The next day you don't feelworse, you feel better.
(06:18):
For example, going away for atwo-day weekend with no screens,
you've got a spa, you've got apool, you're eating healthy
food.
When you come back home from atrip like that, you're gonna
feel great.
But if you go away for a weekendand you just drink all day on
Saturday and Sunday, and thenyou get back home on Monday,
trust me, you're gonna feel likeit creates a permanent,
unrelaxed state, and alcoholgets all the credit for relaxing
(06:41):
you, but it doesn't.
The second lie is this idea thatalcohol makes our life more fun.
But the act of putting a drinkto your lips isn't fun at all.
You do it every day, right?
You do it when you have a coffeein the morning, you do it when
you have a drink of water.
I don't see anybody saying, ohyeah, this water's so fun.
So the act of drinking is justthe act of drinking, right?
(07:02):
It's it's there's nothing funabout it.
And again, I'm gonna go back toit.
But there was a time in yourlife where you were having so
much fun and you didn't drink.
Yeah, you might have been ateenager, you might have even
been a child.
Especially if you were like me,I started drinking in my
teenagers, but then you might bethinking, well, hang on, I went
to this wedding and I drank andit was dead good fun, and then I
went to this concert, I went tothis party, and I had a great
(07:23):
time, but I was also drinking.
See, again, what is happening isalcohol is getting the credit.
But if you actually think aboutall the times you've had a good
time when you've been drinking,I don't think you were sat in a
room on your own just looking inthe mirror or I don't know, sat
on your bed just pounding beers.
No, you were probably doingsomething.
What you didn't realize is allof these things are actually 10
(07:44):
times more enjoyable when youdon't drink.
And if they're not moreenjoyable, like I don't know,
maybe you think, oh, there was aparty that I went to, I was
around a bunch of people Ididn't really like, then I drank
and it was all of a sudden okay.
Yeah, those things won't bebetter without drinking because
you probably didn't even likethem in the first place.
But again, all that's happeningis the association of alcohol
making your life better isgetting stronger and stronger
(08:07):
and stronger.
And then the third lie, probablythe most sinister of all, is we
drink because it's healthy.
We've seen the studies, right?
Wine drinkers are supposed tolive longer, it's supposed to
help our heart.
You heard it right.
Drinking a group one carcinogenis healthy.
When it comes to this idea thatalcohol somehow is a healthy
thing to drink and wine is goodto drink and all of this stuff,
(08:28):
it isn't true.
See, alcohol wipes decades offyour life expectancy.
It is ethanol, it causes sevendifferent types of cancer, it
kills millions of people everysingle year.
However, maybe there's a smallpercentage of the population
that somehow live longer, butthen we just forget all the
other data.
These studies make no sense.
They're not supposed to make anysense because all that happens
(08:51):
is we cherry pick a little bitof data, then all of a sudden
the news is publishing a newheadline.
Champagne drinkers have a lowerrisk of X, Y, and Z.
Listen, it's absurd.
I break this down in my bookthat I'm writing at the moment,
and I'll explain more detailsabout the book over the coming
months ahead.
It's a big project, it isn'tfinished yet, but trust me, it's
taking shape and it is going toblow your mind.
(09:13):
But alcohol is not healthy.
And listen, I could go on and onand on about this.
I could go through so manydifferent beliefs, but when you
can stop all of theseassociations, right?
When you can start to just seealcohol as a drug that is doing
nothing for your life, itdoesn't enhance it in any way,
you stop feeling this sense ofmissing out, and you're able to
see alcohol purely for what itis as ethanol, you stop craving
(09:36):
alcohol.
Because here's how a cravingworks you get a thought of
drinking.
You, I don't know, see a frienddrink, you come home after that
hard day of work, you think ofdrinking, and that's gonna
happen.
That happens to me, that happensto everybody.
But then the next layer is yourparadigm and your worldview.
If you have a paradigm thatassociates that thought with
something positive or thereduction of suffering, you will
(09:58):
crave alcohol.
But if not, literally within asecond, it's like, oh, thinking
of drinking, great.
And then the thought's gone.
And the great thing about thisapproach, when you get a thought
of drinking and it just bouncesoff you, is you actually get
stronger.
Whereas everybody else thatstops drinking alcohol, when
they fight a craving and getthrough the other side, they're
thinking, damn, that was prettyhard.
Because it is hard.
(10:19):
The trick is to catch thecraving before it develops into
a craving.
And that sounds difficult, butit isn't.
It actually starts to just feelnatural.
So instead of thinking, oh, Ican't drink, it's like I don't
drink.
And I don't really want to drinkeither.
Because I think, well, how isalcohol gonna actually help me
relax?
It isn't.
Is it gonna give me a fun time?
No.
See, alcohol is the solution toour problems, but it's not.
(10:43):
What alcohol does is it createsproblems and then appears to be
the solution to the problems itcreates.
Never forget that because thatis mission critical for you on
this journey.
Thanks for checking out the StopDrinking podcast by SoberClear.
If you want to learn more abouthow we work with people to help
them stop drinking effortlessly,then make sure to visit
www.soberclear.com.
Welcome to the Stop Drinking Podcast, where we help
you make stopping drinking asimple, logical, and easy
decision.
We help you with tips, tools,and strategies to start living
your best life when alcoholfree.
If you want to learn more aboutStop Drinking Coaching, then
head over to www.soberclear.com.
(00:22):
What if I told you that alcoholcravings aren't even real?
And all you need is four secondsto eradicate alcohol cravings
forever.
Now, saying something like thatmight get me in trouble, but
what I'm about to show you todayis how you can defeat alcohol
cravings and stopping drinkingwill feel like a walk in the
park.
The cravings will come and thenthey'll just immediately bounce
(00:45):
off you.
I know this works because thisis what happened in my own life.
After 10 years of struggling tonot drink alcohol, this was the
final shift that just fixed itfor me.
But also, this has worked forhundreds of my clients.
People like John, anentrepreneur who's two and a
half years sober.
This has worked for him.
It also worked for Gordon, who'sa construction contractor who's
now 16 months without a drop.
(01:06):
And it also worked for Ramona,who said this approach has made
stopping drinking the easiestthing she's ever done in her
life.
It's hundreds of others as well.
If we've not met yet, my name isLeon Sylvester.
I'm the founder ofsoberclear.com.
We're a coaching company thathelps business people and
professionals get control oftheir drinking quickly.
So the stuff that I'm gonnashare with you is the stuff that
I share with my clients and alsothe stuff I've been applying for
(01:29):
the past seven years.
So let's dive into things.
When it comes to stoppingdrinking and alcohol cravings,
society has got it backwards.
Society believes that alcoholcravings are something that you
battle for the rest of yourlife.
It's a natural part of notdrinking.
You go through everyday life andthen all of a sudden, out of
nowhere, you see alcohol, youmake a positive association with
(01:49):
it, and then bam, you want todrink.
And society and the traditionalways of stopping drinking will
all have you believe that thisis okay and it's normal.
Think about it like this (01:58):
we get told that people who are in
recovery are gonna be inrecovery for the rest of their
life.
So it's a lifelong disease withno known cure.
I used to believe this, I knownow that it's not true.
Alcoholics Anonymous, what didthey say?
Well, one day at a time.
Today I'm just not gonna drink.
And then we use willpower,right?
When we fight through the urgewith willpower, we get cravings
(02:19):
and we just blast through them.
And all of these things arereinforcing the idea that
cravings are gonna be thereforever.
And it's because we're using thewrong methods.
Now, don't get me wrong, whenpeople stop drinking alcohol,
there is an element of physicalwithdrawal.
It can last three to seven days,sometimes longer.
There are people out there thatdo need a medical detox.
And during this process, yourbody will crave alcohol.
(02:42):
It's a physical response to allof these changes that are
happening in your body with yourneurotransmitters, with various
chemicals.
Everything's out of whack andyou want to go back to that
homeostasis that alcohol wascreating, at least what you
thought it was creating.
Your body will have gotaccustomed to a drug, so then
when you remove the drug, itgoes crazy.
But after that process is done,once the healing is finished and
(03:03):
the brain's starting tonormalize, then the cravings
become psychological.
And once you can fix yourpsychology and your worldview,
you will become one of thepeople who's able to not drink
alcohol for the rest of theirlife without thinking about it,
rather than one of those peoplethat's struggling, that's
fighting, that's alwayscomplaining about not being able
to drink.
I don't want you to be one ofthose people.
I want you to be one of thosepeople that just knock this out
(03:25):
of the park and move on withtheir life.
See, but all that's happeningwhen somebody has these
psychological cravings issomething will come up in the
body.
And what ends up happening is wesee alcohol enhances that
situation or that negativefeeling.
It can be various factors.
But as long as we see alcohol assomething that is going to
improve some area of our life orreduce suffering in some area of
(03:47):
our life, as long as we makethat link, we will always crave
alcohol.
Once you can eradicate thatlink, that's when it's just
like, why would I even want todo it?
So let's unpack three of thebiggest triggers and let's start
formulating a new, morerealistic worldview where you
stop seeing alcohol as thesolution to these three
problems.
If you've read any popular stopdrinking books, these ideas,
(04:08):
they might not be new to you,but these things need
reinforcing.
At the end of the day, the ideasthat I share, that other people
on the internet share, thatbooks have shared, you're
combating billions and billionsof dollars spent on alcohol
marketing and this propagandathat gets pushed on you all the
time.
So even if you've heard theseideas before, just stick with
them.
But the first thing is this ideathat alcohol and relaxation have
(04:31):
a link.
We think that when we get homeafter a hard day, you know, when
we really want to just chill outand I don't know, go on a
vacation and lie by the pool, westart to make this association
that somehow, if we drinkalcohol, we're going to feel
more relaxed.
And this is very common.
And a lot of people do this.
They chill out because they justwant to relax.
But there was a time in yourlife when you didn't drink
(04:53):
alcohol and you were perfectlyrelaxed.
It might have been a long timeago now, but when you were a
child, you were perfectlycapable of relaxing.
You never felt the need to takea drug to help you relax.
So there was a time in your lifewhere it was entirely possible
for you to just relax.
Now, you could say, well, Ihadn't have responsibilities
then.
You know, I've got a career now,I've got a family, but it
(05:14):
doesn't matter because this drugdoesn't relax you at all.
How can something that disruptsyour sleep, your REM sleep in
the second half of your nightrelax you?
Waking up, having that terriblesleep, and just, you know,
struggling to open your eyes,needing a drink of water.
When I drank alcohol, it wouldcreate a lot of anxiety.
The next day, cortisol spikes.
How is that relaxing?
See, this creates one of themost vicious cycles ever known.
(05:37):
You end up drinking alcohol andthen feeling relaxed.
I'm not gonna say that thatdoesn't happen.
Of course it happens.
But you might have heard thisbefore.
After that, what happens next?
Well, the next day, you don'tfeel so good.
Right?
You feel a bit anxious, you feela bit on edge, all because of
the previous drinks that you'vehad are now causing a feeling of
being unrelaxed.
So you drink.
And then, oh, I do feel relaxedagain.
(05:57):
I feel calm, I feel peaceful.
And then you wake up the nextmorning and not feeling quite
right, and then you drink again.
And now I've spelled it out abit clearer, you might start to
see the problem.
But you're creating a falseassociation with a drug that
makes you withdraw andrelaxation.
Things that truly relax youdon't have a rebound effect.
The next day you don't feelworse, you feel better.
(06:18):
For example, going away for atwo-day weekend with no screens,
you've got a spa, you've got apool, you're eating healthy
food.
When you come back home from atrip like that, you're gonna
feel great.
But if you go away for a weekendand you just drink all day on
Saturday and Sunday, and thenyou get back home on Monday,
trust me, you're gonna feel likeit creates a permanent,
unrelaxed state, and alcoholgets all the credit for relaxing
(06:41):
you, but it doesn't.
The second lie is this idea thatalcohol makes our life more fun.
But the act of putting a drinkto your lips isn't fun at all.
You do it every day, right?
You do it when you have a coffeein the morning, you do it when
you have a drink of water.
I don't see anybody saying, ohyeah, this water's so fun.
So the act of drinking is justthe act of drinking, right?
(07:02):
It's it's there's nothing funabout it.
And again, I'm gonna go back toit.
But there was a time in yourlife where you were having so
much fun and you didn't drink.
Yeah, you might have been ateenager, you might have even
been a child.
Especially if you were like me,I started drinking in my
teenagers, but then you might bethinking, well, hang on, I went
to this wedding and I drank andit was dead good fun, and then I
went to this concert, I went tothis party, and I had a great
(07:23):
time, but I was also drinking.
See, again, what is happening isalcohol is getting the credit.
But if you actually think aboutall the times you've had a good
time when you've been drinking,I don't think you were sat in a
room on your own just looking inthe mirror or I don't know, sat
on your bed just pounding beers.
No, you were probably doingsomething.
What you didn't realize is allof these things are actually 10
(07:44):
times more enjoyable when youdon't drink.
And if they're not moreenjoyable, like I don't know,
maybe you think, oh, there was aparty that I went to, I was
around a bunch of people Ididn't really like, then I drank
and it was all of a sudden okay.
Yeah, those things won't bebetter without drinking because
you probably didn't even likethem in the first place.
But again, all that's happeningis the association of alcohol
making your life better isgetting stronger and stronger
(08:07):
and stronger.
And then the third lie, probablythe most sinister of all, is we
drink because it's healthy.
We've seen the studies, right?
Wine drinkers are supposed tolive longer, it's supposed to
help our heart.
You heard it right.
Drinking a group one carcinogenis healthy.
When it comes to this idea thatalcohol somehow is a healthy
thing to drink and wine is goodto drink and all of this stuff,
(08:28):
it isn't true.
See, alcohol wipes decades offyour life expectancy.
It is ethanol, it causes sevendifferent types of cancer, it
kills millions of people everysingle year.
However, maybe there's a smallpercentage of the population
that somehow live longer, butthen we just forget all the
other data.
These studies make no sense.
They're not supposed to make anysense because all that happens
(08:51):
is we cherry pick a little bitof data, then all of a sudden
the news is publishing a newheadline.
Champagne drinkers have a lowerrisk of X, Y, and Z.
Listen, it's absurd.
I break this down in my bookthat I'm writing at the moment,
and I'll explain more detailsabout the book over the coming
months ahead.
It's a big project, it isn'tfinished yet, but trust me, it's
taking shape and it is going toblow your mind.
(09:13):
But alcohol is not healthy.
And listen, I could go on and onand on about this.
I could go through so manydifferent beliefs, but when you
can stop all of theseassociations, right?
When you can start to just seealcohol as a drug that is doing
nothing for your life, itdoesn't enhance it in any way,
you stop feeling this sense ofmissing out, and you're able to
see alcohol purely for what itis as ethanol, you stop craving
(09:36):
alcohol.
Because here's how a cravingworks you get a thought of
drinking.
You, I don't know, see a frienddrink, you come home after that
hard day of work, you think ofdrinking, and that's gonna
happen.
That happens to me, that happensto everybody.
But then the next layer is yourparadigm and your worldview.
If you have a paradigm thatassociates that thought with
something positive or thereduction of suffering, you will
(09:58):
crave alcohol.
But if not, literally within asecond, it's like, oh, thinking
of drinking, great.
And then the thought's gone.
And the great thing about thisapproach, when you get a thought
of drinking and it just bouncesoff you, is you actually get
stronger.
Whereas everybody else thatstops drinking alcohol, when
they fight a craving and getthrough the other side, they're
thinking, damn, that was prettyhard.
Because it is hard.
(10:19):
The trick is to catch thecraving before it develops into
a craving.
And that sounds difficult, butit isn't.
It actually starts to just feelnatural.
So instead of thinking, oh, Ican't drink, it's like I don't
drink.
And I don't really want to drinkeither.
Because I think, well, how isalcohol gonna actually help me
relax?
It isn't.
Is it gonna give me a fun time?
No.
See, alcohol is the solution toour problems, but it's not.
(10:43):
What alcohol does is it createsproblems and then appears to be
the solution to the problems itcreates.
Never forget that because thatis mission critical for you on
this journey.
Thanks for checking out the StopDrinking podcast by SoberClear.
If you want to learn more abouthow we work with people to help
them stop drinking effortlessly,then make sure to visit
www.soberclear.com.
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