Anxiety And Quitting Alcohol. What Nobody Tells You (My Experience)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (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, toolsand strategies to start living
your best life when alcohol-free.
If you want to learn more aboutstop drinking coaching, then
head over to wwwsoberclearcom.

(00:21):
Today I'm going to share withyou my experience of stopping
drinking alcohol and anxiety.
I've not drank now for sevenyears, after a decade of
struggling.
So I'm going to break the videoup into a few sections.
I want to talk to you aboutwhat life was like when I was
drinking.
Then I want to talk to youabout the transition period
where I went from a drinker to anon-drinker seven years ago,

(00:44):
because, listen, that was nojoke.
Then I'm going to talk to youabout the first year, and I am
going to be so realistic withyou.
I'm not going to sugarcoatthings.
I'm not going to say, yay,everything was perfect.
It wasn't.
Then I'll talk to you aboutyears two and seven, and then
I'll bring it back to thepresent day, because I want to
give you a realistic picture ofwhat to expect.
This topic is pretty damnuniversal.
Since stopping drinking alcoholmyself, I have started a

(01:05):
coaching company.
It's SoberClearcom.
We've worked with over 450clients, and we work with
business owners andprofessionals and we help them
get control of their drinking inas little as 24 hours.
Not everybody gets results thatquickly.
It's happened.
It's usually about two to sevendays, but I can probably count
on two hands the number ofpeople who haven't experienced
what I'm about to talk to youabout.

(01:25):
So whatever you're goingthrough right now is normal, but
the goal of this video is togive you a realistic expectation
.
But then I'm going to sharesome strategies that have almost
eradicated any anxiety that Ifeel, and very quickly.
If you want instant access to abrand new video training that
I've just finished, showing youhow to control alcohol in as
little as 48 hours, then clickthe link in the description.

(01:48):
This new method is not aboutusing willpower therapy or AA
meetings.
It's totally different.
I do not publish this videoanywhere else online and it's
already changing thousands oflives.
So click the link below forinstant access.
Once you're on the next page,enter your name and email
address and your free trainingwill begin.
It takes just seven minutes towatch, but it'll feel like

(02:09):
somebody flicks a switch in yourbrain and, honestly, I'm not
sure when I'll start chargingfor this seven minute video
training.
That's how good it is.
But whilst it's still available, click the link below, enter
your name and email address andwatch that video now.
So before I talk to you aboutwhat happened after stopping
drinking alcohol, I'm just goingto touch on what happened as a
drinker.
So when I actually drankalcohol, right when I was

(02:29):
physically drinking, gettingdrunk, going out, having some
drinks at home, whatever, I hadzero anxiety.
See, alcohol is an anxietyrelieving drug.
I'm not going to get into thechemical properties in this
video, because I really want tojust talk about experience in
this video.
But when I drank alcohol, I hadno anxiety.
Now, this actually was a problemin itself, because what would
happen is I would make stupidchoices.

(02:51):
For example, I would have noanxiety if I wanted to drive a
car.
I wouldn't think about thelong-term consequences, I
wouldn't be anxious about what'sgoing to happen tomorrow if I
make this ridiculous decisionand I've drink-driven in the
past.
Man, I really hope I don't getin trouble one day by saying
that, but I've done it.
I don't want to start talkingabout all the stupid things.
But you know, drugs, all of itright.
But when I drank alcohol, myanxiety.

(03:11):
It didn't feel like it was zero, it felt like it was minus 10.
As in, I wouldn't even considerthe consequences of the next
day.
I just make these ridiculousdecisions.
Anyway, now, the major problem Ihad when I was drinking alcohol
, when it comes to anxiety, waswhat would happen the day after,
and the longer that my drinkingcontinued, the worse this got.
I would get these anxietyattacks when I was hungover, and

(03:32):
I think the term now peoplelike to say is anxiety and boy,
that would happen to me, butthis would last for multiple
days.
So, naturally, when I stoppeddrinking alcohol, I thought that
maybe that this would just goaway completely, but it didn't
Trust me.
The story gets better, but Idon't want to overhype it.
I want to be realistic with you.
So what happened is I stoppeddrinking alcohol seven years ago
and I got off pretty lightly.

(03:53):
A lot of the clients that Iwork with have drank for way
longer than I did 20 years, 30years, 40 years, 50 years and
they experienced it a lot moreseverely than I did.
I might have felt bad for twoor three days.
Honestly, it's such a distantmemory now that I can barely
remember it, but compared to howI felt when I drank alcohol.
Even if I felt anxious duringthat time, I didn't care.
I pushed through it.
That was my experience.

(04:18):
That's not everybody'sexperience.
If you drank a lot for a longperiod of time, when you
actually stop drinking alcohol,you can expect to feel pretty
damn anxious.
You can feel very panicky.
You can feel like your heartkeeps racing.
You can't fall asleep at night.
There's like this impendingdoom that's a way to describe it
.
It's like something bad's goingto happen and that's okay.
It will subside.
It will reduce massively.

(04:40):
But you can expect in the firstcouple of weeks, sometimes even
up to the first month, thatanxiety levels will have
heightened.
Like I said, I got off prettylightly with this.
For me it actually came a fewmonths later, which I'll get to
in a second.
But again, it all depends onthe individual, how long they've
drank, how much they've drank.
But when you go through thattransitionary period, just
expect anxiety could be veryhigh.
But this is all about yourbrain rebalancing.
The chemicals are just startingto normalize and level out and

(05:03):
you will get past it.
So I want to bring it back tomy experience After I stopped
drinking alcohol.
The first few months were fine.
I felt like the old me was back, like this flood of
self-confidence came into mylife where I just felt like I
can do anything and I know noteverybody feels like this, but I
just felt turbocharged.
I just felt like a bull in aChina shop, just bam, bam, bam.
I can do everything.
And I just started taking somuch action.

(05:24):
I got back into the gym, gotback into peak shape, I started
a new business, I startedpersonal training.
Then I ended up moving toThailand.
I booked a one-way flight,started an online business.
I was just in action mode.
But then I hit a roadblock and Ididn't expect it to happen.
But around maybe month three tosix something like that is
anxiety came back into my lifeand there were some days where I

(05:45):
would have this feeling in mychest and I'm not even joking, I
was almost immobile, like Icouldn't do anything with those
days and, honestly, I was inThailand at the time.
The only thing I could go anddo was go and get a Thai massage
or a foot massage and my daywould be finished.
And this came out of nowhere.
It was quite strange, because Iwent from this euphoria and
this, you know, this greatfeeling of self-confidence and

(06:07):
self-belief to then feeling likepretty damn anxious.
I was afraid of the future.
I didn't know what was in storefor me.
Now I do believe I found a fixthat worked for me.
There were four things that Idid that I'll explain towards
the end of the video.
But that first year was prettyup and down, but then it kind of
subsided and I'm telling you itmust have dropped by 95%.
It was almost like a phase thatI went through.

(06:29):
But on reflection, when Ireally look back, it was because
I'd stopped drinking alcohol.
But my life didn't mysteriously, just magically go perfect.
Sure, I was feeling better, Ihad more clarity, I had more
energy, I did have a lot moreself-confidence and a lot more
self-belief.
But that didn't mean that allof a sudden my financial problem
was fixed or my career problemwas fixed or my relationship

(06:50):
problem was fixed.
I still had a lot of problemsin my life and I think what
happened is I went through thiseuphoric period of just feeling
on top of things because I couldremember how painful life was
when I drank.
And then, once the painsubsided, then reality hit.
And I like to talk about this onthe channel because this
happens to a lot of people.
We get sold that stoppingdrinking alcohol is going to fix
all our problems, but it ain'tNow, luckily, the action mode

(07:13):
that I was in of just go, go, go, go go, that's still kind of
here to this day.
I've just not stopped, which isa blessing and a curse.
It's hard for me to switch off,but all the things that were
causing that low level ofanxiety were problems that I
could fix and rather than dowhat I've been doing for the
past 10 years, which was goingto the bottle to escape these
feelings, to escape any you knowbad feeling that I had about

(07:36):
the future, about my life, I'djust have a drink and that
feeling would go away.
Now I could deal with them.
So in years one to two it wasso much easier.
I think the turning pointprobably came somewhere around
month six to nine, around thatpoint Now probably came
somewhere around month six tosix to nine, around that point
Now.
The good news is is I trulybelieve I found the real root

(07:57):
cause of my own anxiety, whichis why it's reduced to like 99%.
I'm not saying it's perfect,but years one to two it was like
95% down and then, when itcomes to year two, up until the
present day, I can safely saythat it's pretty much at zero.
Don't get me wrong.
I have my moments and I have mydays.
They do come, and I want tojust preface this by saying that
I found a fix to my own anxiety.
I'm not saying I found a cure,I'm not saying this is going to

(08:18):
work for you for sure, but thefour things that came up for me,
I think, have made all thedifference.
So there have been days where Iwake up with this tight feeling
in my chest and honestly, onthose days sometimes I can't do
anything.
I'll press record on a cameraand I can barely speak, I can

(08:40):
barely get a word out, I'llsound almost incoherent, and
then I'll think about all of thelists of to-dos and the tasks
that I've got to do, and thenthis thing and that thing, and
then I'm just like overwhelmed.
And the first cause of all ofthis for me is sleep.
I'm telling you I'm prettysensitive to not getting a good
night of rest.
If I'm waking up two or threetimes in the night, I can feel
the difference emotionally thenext day.
And I have noticed this linkover the past seven years of not
drinking alcohol.
Whenever I got really bad sleep, that is when anxiety would

(09:03):
start to peak.
And that's why, when we stopdrinking alcohol, that first two
to four weeks however long itis for different people that's
part of the reason why anxietycan feel so high.
Sure, you've got the drug aspectof things and the chemical
changes in your brain, but thenyou're also going to have some
level of disrupted sleep, whichis all linked to anxiety.
So if I have a terrible nightof sleep and the next day I get

(09:25):
that feeling, the second thingthat I've got to do is accept it
.
If I try and fight it and I tryand just blast through it and
make videos and do the to-dolist and work really hard, some
days I can't do it.
I just can't do it.
I'm like, ah, and if I beatmyself up about that, then the
anxiety gets worse and what I'velearned to do on these days is

(09:46):
just be at peace.
It's just to totally accept itand be like, okay, well, this
day all I'll do is what I can doand let go of the rest.
If I have a plan for the daywhere I'm going to do X, y and Z
and I only do the first thingon that list and nothing else.
Then what I try and do is justcount the day as a win, but
being at peace with theseemotions, feelings, whatever you
call it, it just takes the edgeoff.

(10:07):
The third thing that I havefound to be a massive help is
gratitude.
See, my old mentor used toteach me this.
He used to say every single day, when you plan your day is to
write down a list of things thatyou're grateful for.
He would always say that if youproject too far into the future
, you will get anxious, you willget fearful, you'll be thinking
how am I going to deal with aproblem that's not even at your
doorstep yet?
You'll be thinking all over theplace.

(10:28):
And he taught me that gratitudeis actually the solution to
this problem.
If you can just feel gratefulfor what you have right now, you
lose a lot of the fear of thefuture.
And this was huge for me,because anxiety was always
thinking about the future.
Oh, what about this problem?
What about that problem?
This financial thing, thishealth thing, this business
thing?
I was always projecting intothe future, which was really

(10:49):
making me struggle to just bepresent in the moment and take
action and writing down thingsthat I was grateful for.
What it did is it brought meback to the present moment.
I'd look at my surroundings,I'd look at my environment, I'd
look at my life and I'd get thisfeeling of actually life's
pretty damn good, and this madea huge difference in my life.
The fourth thing was a techniquethat I actually Googled.

(11:10):
I think I found it on Quora Imight have even pronounced that
wrong, quora, whatever it'scalled Reddit.
I can't remember where I foundit, but somebody gave a
technique of when you've gotthat really peak anxiety.
They said what you want to dois you want to focus on your
senses and you want to findthree things that you can taste,
touch, feel, hear and see.
I don't know if you're evergoing to taste three things, but
anyway, the whole point is thatyou bring yourself into your

(11:32):
senses and then you start tothink, okay, well, I can see
this, I can see that, I can hear, and then you just kind of
bring yourself into the presentmoment, so you stop projecting
into the future and that was apretty cool technique.
I remember using that.
I've not used it for years nowbecause as long as I get a good
night of sleep.
Usually I'm fine.
But going back to the topic ofsleep for one last time, why I
think sleep is so important isbecause if you don't have a good

(11:52):
night of sleep and you've gotthis list of things that you're
going to do and then you come toyour day and start to attack
the day when I don't have a goodnight of sleep, I can't
function as well.
Honestly, they say like sleepis this miracle drug and blah,
blah, blah.
And I always think, nah,pseudoscience, whatever.
I think I saw some quote thatsaid the number one performance
enhancing drug is sleep and I'malways thinking, shut up, nah,

(12:14):
no chance.
I'm highly sceptical, right,but I get it, because when you
have a bad night of sleep, itdoes kind of ruin your day.
So then when you come to tacklethe list of things that you've
got to do and you can't take theaction that you want to take,
what I think happens is that wethink, okay, well, oh dear, if
I'm going to be like this everysingle day, how am I ever going
to achieve my goals?
If I can't function and followa simple plan?

(12:34):
At least, this is what wouldhappen for me, is the thought
pattern would spiral and getworse and worse and worse, which
is why I had to learn to justaccept those days.
Not every day is going to beperfect.
I will have bad days.
We all have bad days.
Thanks for checking out theStop Drinking Podcast by Sober
Clear.
If you want to learn more abouthow we work with people to help
them stop drinking effortlessly, then make sure to visit

(12:55):
wwwsoberclearcom.