My Story - Raw & Vulnerable

Hey, I'm Barti Arez and I'm the Stop Drinking Coach. Welcome to my podcast where I teach you how to stop drinking, how to quit craving, and how to begin the journey back to yourself so that you can transform your life. After a 14-year binge drinking career, starting and stopping dozens of times and trying everything in the book from AA to therapy, I finally discovered the key to sustainable sobriety. And on this podcast, you're going to learn practical tips, tools, and strategies to help you quit drinking alcohol the easy way so you can finally step into the next chapter of your life and begin fulfilling your potential. For Private One-on-One or Group Coaching, visit www.TheStopDrinkingCoach.com and book a call with me. Hey, welcome back to another episode. My name is Barti Arez. I'm your host of the Stop Drinking Coach podcast and I am the Stop Drinking Coach and I'm super excited to be digging into another episode today. And in today's episode, I'm going to be digging in and sharing my story. I think many of you have been following me for a while through my TikTok. And if you've watched the pinned video at the very top of my TikTok, I kind of dig into my story and my background, what my relationship with alcohol look like and how I got here. But I haven't actually really dug into it officially and told it from 8 is on the podcast. So I want to take an opportunity to do that because I know many of you call me fill out an application to work with me and we talk. And some of you asked, you know, what's your background? How are you qualified for this? You know, what got you to this point? How is it that you understand this stuff in the way that you do? Like, so I really want to dig in and talk about my story. And so I'm going to give it to you from 8 is Z as far back as I can remember. And I'm going to dig into every step into, you know, what kind of life was like for me growing up and what my journey looked like with alcohol and how I got here to this point on a podcast, sharing my voice with you. So, you know, for me, alcohol has always been like the central theme of my life. As far back as I can remember, some of my earliest memories were of me when I was living in LA. And so I was born in LA and I lived in LA to I was about five years old and then we moved to Orange County. And some of my earliest memories were me in the kitchen with my dad sort of in the corner of the kitchen where the two sort of counters meet. He was leaned up against it and he'd be drinking beer. And I remember there would always be beer in the fridge and, you know, I'd be curious about it and I'd ask my mom about it. She would never let me have any. But I just remember my dad drinking every single night, you know. And so time kind of goes by and I start really recognizing that alcohol is like a thing probably around six, seven, eight years old because I'm just seeing my dad drink all the time. And, you know, where the story with alcohol really begins to become apparent is right around like I would say eight, nine, ten years old where I'm really kind of beginning to develop my faculties and kind of becoming self-aware. And I begin to just notice that my dad drinks all the time. Like he's he's never the only time I knew him sober was Saturday mornings. And I didn't really understand what it was about or what it was doing or why he was drinking so much. I knew that I didn't like it because when he was drinking, he would really change. You know, my dad was when he was sober, he was one of the most kind, gentle, open-hearted, generous, like amazing people. He would give his, he would give the shirt off of his back to homeless people. Like that's, that's the type of person that he was when he was sober. But when he was drinking, he would get really angry and pretty verbally and emotionally abusive. And he would get really sad. Those were kind of the two states that I saw him in. He would cry a lot and he would be really angry. And really still to this day, I don't know what the full story is with my dad. Like my parents, like my family that for whatever reason, they always thought like I was the baby of the family and everything always had to be hush hush. I'm sure I don't have the complete story of what the details were of why he was so angry and everything else. But like growing up in that type of environment, man, was was pretty crazy. Right. So my dad was a hardcore alcoholic. I remember waking up multiple times during the week for years where, you know, at 1am, 2am, 3am, cops would be coming to our house. And I'd be waking up to, you know, my dad, like dude, 55, 57 year old adult, stocky, strong Persian man yelling at the top of his lungs, like the scary type of yell, right? Like that comes deep from your gut, like yelling at my mom and my sisters at like 2, 3am, like raging. And I'd wake up like so confused. Like what the fuck are you? Like what's going on here? Why are you so angry? You know, like what do they do? And I'd literally like he'd get up close to like my mom and into my sisters and I'd have to kind of step in and like break it up. And it was crazy, man, it was crazy. You know, obviously him being the male figure, like kind of the leader of the family, you know, that just that destroyed everything, right? It wasn't a safe space for me to feel comfortable for me to grow, for me to evolve. It wasn't a safe space for my mom. It didn't feel like a safe space. I'm sure for my sisters either. And so like for me growing up, it always felt like I was alone. Even though I was living in a house with, you know, one or two sisters, depending on the journey and what was going on at the time. And a mom and a dad, it felt like I was always alone. Because what I discovered after reading the book, adult children of emotionally immature parents is that both my mom and dad were incredibly emotionally immature and did not have the capacity to really connect with me on a deep level. Like it never felt like they asked, it never felt like they got to know me. And still to this day, it kind of feels that way. You know, the conversations that I have with my mom are very surface level. I how are you? How are things going? I wish you the best. Like hope you're successful. You know, wear a mask on the plane. She still thinks, you know, I need to wear a mask. Like it's just like, you know, and so, so like growing up, it, it, it, looking back, it, it was emotional neglect, right? Because it was never, hey, how's it going, Bardi, how's your day? Like let me get to know you. Let me understand who you are. Let me help you like develop. Let me understand your personality. Let me see what's good. It was none of that, you know? And so for me, it really always felt like I was alone. And I think that was a deep, deep wound that, that was developed at an early age, which was part of a cause of, of my drinking is that I always felt alone. And I never really felt connected to anybody. There was never like a deep level of safety. It never felt like I had a safety net, right? Like, and I think that was part of the reason I never took things further and got into heroin or methamphetamines or anything else. It's because I knew that there was literally no safety net. There was no money for rehab. There was no money to bail me out of jail. Like we were going, I mean, my family, like it was either paycheck to paycheck, you know, like I never went without food. I always had two to three dollars to eat for lunch, but that was about it, you know? And like, I, you know, I, I'd close, I'd go close shopping once a year, but like, it was pretty minimal, you know? Like we always lived in an apartment. And, and so like, I knew there was no safety net for me. And so, you know, fast forward between the ages of like eight and 12, dad's drinking a lot. He's, he's really drinking a lot. My oldest sister, you know, was in a relationship and the relationship started to go south, she ended up getting a divorce. And I'm not really sure how it happened or how it transpired, but she ended up getting addicted to drugs, like hard drugs. And she ended up moving back in with us. And this is when I was probably around 11, maybe 12 years old. And, you know, what's crazy is like, she ended up getting my mom into those drugs as well. And I remember coming home one day and, um, you know, seeing my mom on the couch and she was like, listen to this really like sad, depressing music, just like sprawled out on this couch. And I was like, huh, that's weird. But like my routine was I'd come home, I'd immediately go into the room and I jump on the computer and play like video games. And I get a call from my dad saying, Hey, like, what's going on with your mom? I'm like, I'm not really sure. She's just listened to this music. And she's like, she ate a bunch of pills. Like, don't let her swallow the pills she's eating. like, you need to go watch her. And so obviously there's way more to the story here. How would have my dad known that? There's so much of the story that like my family hasn't even told me, but this is my recollection and picture from it. So I go into the other room and she's like, hey, like, what, you know, and I'm like, hey, like, what are you doing? You know, dad said you ate a bunch of pills and she like wrote me off and she's like, yeah, don't worry about it. Okay, okay, like, I'm not gonna do anything. And I'm like, all right, you know, so I'm 11 years old. Like, what fucking control do I have over the situation? What am I gonna do? I have no context or map of reality. I don't know what happens if you eat a bunch of pills. Like, you don't know anything at that age, you know, you think you do, but like you don't, right? There's no real context of what's happening. So I go back into the room and like 20, 30 minutes later in, I hear an ambulance like sirens and I look out the window and there's like paramedics and firefighters walking towards my house. I run into the other room and my mom's like kind of sprawled out. Doesn't look like she's doing well. And yeah, they like come into the house and they put her on the gurney. And I'm like, in that moment, I'm like, my mom's dead. Like, this is it for me. You know, like, I'm losing my mom. And, you know, I started crying and like, I think I called a couple of my friends who lived in the apartment complex and like, they came and like all the neighbors were out. And it was this whole scene, legit whole scene. Like all the neighbors were out. We lived in those like four apartment complexes where there's stairs up to on top, to on bottom. And, you know, I'm just like bawling my eyes out, thinking this is it, like my mom's dead. And so I get into the ambulance, I ride in the front, I'm crying all the way to the hospital. We get to the hospital. And I'm just freaking the whole time. Like this was a fucking traumatic experience now that I think back. Like I haven't really thought that deeply about it, but it's taking me back. I remember standing outside and like the whole time, like for two hours, like I was freaking. I was crying, like I was like, this is it. And eventually kind of my sisters came and like, try to calm me down and she's like, no, she's gonna be okay. They're like pumping her stomach. They're getting pills out. And yeah, man, that was crazy. That was crazy. And like, so during those times, I remember I'd come home at five, five PM from school, you know? And they'd still be sleeping. Like the house was still dark as if it was 3am or 5am. And they'd be sleeping in the living room. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, dude, it was so confusing for me. I was like, what the fuck is this? Why are you guys still sleeping? It's five o'clock, like get the fuck up, you know? And it'd be like this for days or weeks and they were on vendors, you know? They were doing math and I didn't know. And I didn't understand, right? They'd stay up all throughout the night. I wouldn't be able to get sleep. And dude, it was just fucked up. It was fucked up, you know? I'm probably not doing the best job of like telling the story because I didn't script it. I didn't plan it. I'm just kind of pulling up what comes to mind here. So all this stuff kind of transpires and, you know, around like when I was 13 years old, we got evicted from our apartment. I'm not really sure why. Probably didn't have money. Dad was deep in his alcoholism. And like the family split up, you know? And I went and I lived with my oldest sister. She got an apartment and I was kind of like cruising there for a little while. And I remember I was hanging out with one of my friends and I got a call from, I got a call from my sister and she was crying on the phone. And I like immediately knew something was wrong. And she's like, hey, you gotta come home now. Like I don't care what you're doing. You just need to come here right now. Get here. I was like, okay. So I got a ride from like my friend's parents or something. I don't remember what I did. Back to my sister's house. And as soon as I walk up, like everybody's crying. The doors open, my oldest sister is hysterical. I mean, the type of cry you've never seen before. Screaming like rage at the top of her lungs. You know, hysterical, pacing back and forth like in shock. You know, 'cause she had just heard the news too. And she said, hey, you know, like dad died. And I just remember in that moment, like it just was like a knife to my heart. And you know, I just kind of almost like kind of dropped to my knees a little bit. And it was just a really surreal experience. You know, I, in the back of my mind, life was going down for the last couple of years in every capacity with my family. And I knew things like weren't looking good, especially for him. Like I had met up with him a couple of times and he was just pissed fucking drunk every time. And yeah, man, in that moment, it was like shit was real, you know, it was real. And I remember I went into my sister's boyfriend car at the time and I sat in the back seat and I just, I probably cried for like 20 minutes, 30 minutes. And so what ends up happening is like, you know, my sister's dating this guy at the time. And his name is Sean. And he, you know, I was like 14 at the time, I was in high school. And he came to one of my football games and we met and we connected. And he'd seem like a really cool guy, you know, I think at the time he was 28 or 29. He was also newly sober. He was sober maybe three or four years. And he made like really good money. I think he made like multiple six figures. And I just really looked up to him and admired him and like respected him because he seemed so cool and so chill. And like the way he managed his mind and his emotions, like nothing was like kind of that big of a deal. And like he just, it seems safe. And, you know, I don't know where I'd be in my life if it wasn't for him because he kind of came into my life and became my older brother. He became my mentor almost like my father figure. He took me in and I moved in with him and my sister for I don't know a year, year and a half. And that was a really powerful experience, you know, to have somebody like that right when my dad passed away. I think saved my life because I don't know who I would have been or what life would have turned out to be if it wasn't for this person, for this guy named Sean who I'm still very close with and who is my mentor. And you know, the person that I call if I need support or if I'm not sure about something or you know, I just want some insight. Guys, an absolute wizard. I mean, in his early 40s now, 21 plus years sober, basically retired like his, just a really unique individual, like I've never met anybody like him and almost every single person who knows him says the exact same thing. I'm really, really interesting and beautiful character in mind. And I feel very fortunate for that experience. And so, you know, that whole thing kind of happens and then high school hits, right? And during, you know, keep in mind, throughout this entire experience, I'm repulsed by the idea of alcohol and drugs. I mean, alcohol and drugs were the greatest point of misery for me. It is what ripped my family apart. It's what killed my dad. It's what created a dysfunctional and unstable environment. It was the core of all trauma. It was the core of all wounds. It was the core of all the feelings of emotional, like it all came from alcohol and drugs, you know? And so, you know, I get into high school, sophomore year and I start partying. And the first time I pick up alcohol, I bingeed. So the very first time I drank, I think I was 13 years old. And it was with a couple of my friends. We went to their grandma's house to do house sitting with their dad because they're like, grandma was out of town for whatever. I don't know, we had to house sit at for whatever reason. And she had a bar and we had never drinking before, you know? And we saw that bar and we're like, dude, you guys want to try to drink? Like, let's see what's good with this stuff. And their dad was a stoner, smoked weed. He was like the chill dad, you know? But like their dad had major alcohol problems and addiction issues with weed and pills and all types of stuff. So like we asked him, we're like, hey, like can we drink? And he's like, yeah, you know, I guess so. As long as you guys are with me, like, yeah. Yeah, you guys can go ahead and drink, just watch yourselves and you know, whatever. So we throw some music on. We start blasting music and like we had never drinking before. We just start taking shots of like every different type of liquor that it was. She probably had 25 different types of liquor. And we're pouring shots of like different liquor each time. And dude, we got fucked up. I think we each took between like 13 and 16 shots, you know, we're 13 years old, probably have food in our stomach and I had never drank in before. And we drank fast, probably took all those shots within 30 to 45 minutes. Then it didn't notice space it out. We're just fucking tampering shots throwing them back. And I remember, dude, we got. absolutely hammered. You know, we're walking around the house, being crazy, blasting music, like just, I can't, it was just a wild experience. You know, we ended up passing out a few years, a few hours later, and I remember waking up and I just threw up like a gallon of alcohol. It was the most disgusting thing in my life. I had this smell of tequila in my nose for like six weeks. Seeing alcohol, we went to the grocery store after and just seeing the alcohol literally made me want to vomit. It was so disgusting. So that was my very first experience drinking as I binge. Then, you know, I get into high school and as soon as I start drinking in high schools, I start partying and going to parties like I become a binge drinker. I was never the type who could just have one. As soon as I would have one, a switch would go off in my brain and I would keep drinking until either I got really drunk or passed out or got sick. And from that very first moment as that began, dude, I knew it was a problem. Alcohol killed my dad. And so there was an incredible amount of guilt and shame that came with picking up alcohol every single time. Every single time I picked it up, I felt guilty. I was like, dude, I'm doing the very thing. I'm following in the footsteps of the person who died, my dad. I'm following in the footsteps of like the destruction, you know, like I had seen what this had done to my family. So when my, when my dad dies, you know, my uncle comes down to help with the funeral and he gives me this book. And this book changes my life. I still haven't reached out to my uncle yet to talk to him, but I plan on doing it soon. But this book changed everything for me, you know. Dude, I don't know if I, if I want to record this podcast. I don't know if I'm telling it right. I feel like I'm skipping around. He gives me this book and it's called, you'll see it when you believe it. And it's by this guy named Wayne Dyer. Wayne Dyer is a really famous spiritual figure of our time. He passed away a few years ago. I've never, ever given a fuck if any celebrity or any authority like pass away. Like it just never mattered to me. But when Wayne Dyer died, like it was deep for me. I think I cried and it was like it was, it really hit me hard because this guy, this guy's book single handedly sent me like altered the entire trajectory of my life. And so he gives me this book and I'm not sure why he gave it to me. I'm sure he gave it to me because he thought I could find some support in that right when my dad passed away. But it was called, you'll see it when you believe it. And I encourage you to buy this book. Don't listen to the audio, buy the book and read it all the way through. And I read that book at 14 years old and it introduced me to the concept of your beliefs, influence, your reality, your thoughts, influence, your reality. Like it just, it introduced me to the concept of consciousness, mindfulness, it opened me up to the whole world of personal development that I had no idea existed. You know, at 14 years old, you're your freshman in high school. You think you have the capacity to like understand what's going on in life. But you, you really don't when you're 14. But when I read that book, it expanded my map of reality beyond what I knew existed. It, it took me to a place that I about my humanity, about my consciousness, about my mind, about my beliefs, about the, the interfacing process of human to universe. It took me into a space that previously was unknown. It was uncharted territory. And I became fascinated. I became fascinated with the concept of consciousness. I became fascinated with the idea of my internal experience of reality because the way he broke it down in that book, I was like, Jesus, this is, this is wizardry, you know, like, and that changed me as a person permanently after reading that book. And it sent me down this rabbit hole of trying to understand the nature of reality. And I got deep into personal development, personal growth, studying mindset, philosophy, spirituality, reading religious texts, taking religious classes like Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, like I explored all of it. Christian, the Hari Krishna is like, and by the time I was like 19 or 20, I had read all the major kind of personal development books. I'd read like 100 books by the time I was 20 in, in those areas around leadership and mindset and personal growth and philosophy and wisdom and spirituality. All the Wayne Dyers, all the Deepak Chopras, all the John C. Maxwell's, like all that stuff. The power of now, like four agreements, you know, all those books, the recognizable ones that you find on the top 50 top 100 of Amazon, like I had read them by 19. And right around that age, like I knew that I wanted to get into coaching. I knew that where I felt the most alive and the most called was helping people was taking all the knowledge that I've synthesized across the human experience and to package it and to help other people. Like that's when I felt the most connected, that's when I felt the most alive. What I'm doing now is my purpose. And I discovered that around 19 years old. But I didn't have the context and map of reality to actually understand how that could ever come together. Right? So throughout this entire time I'm drinking and drinking is a major, major problem for me. I'm a weekend binge drinker from the ages of 15 to 29. Throughout that time, I probably had a total of nine months sober, ten months sober, longest I got with six months and then I had all these other one week, two weeks, six, you know, three week stints, one month stints. But I tried to stop drinking a legit ten times. I've been to 150, 200 AA meetings. I've seen therapists and nothing seemed to work. I was deep in my alcoholism. I was such a fucking fiend for the dopamine man. I don't know anybody who loved alcohol as much as me, who was as obsessed as alcohol as me. Now meeting many of you, and I'm sure many of you are, but like, dude, it was the best thing that I'd ever found. It was God for me. It was truly source for me, you know. But the entire time, man, throughout my 20s, like I was that high functioning binge drinker. You know, I drank Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and dude, my hangovers would last three days, four days. Finally, on Thursday, I'd start feeling better. Finally on Friday, it started to feel like myself again and then boom, right back in the cycle. And it wasn't like until, and that thing, that confused me. Now I understand it's neurochemistry. Now understand it's dopamine. It's how I've been able to help tens of thousands of people, many of you listening quit drinking by understanding what's going on. But before this, dude, it was so baffling to me. I couldn't understand why I fucking hated alcohol and I wanted nothing to do with it, but I was such a fiend for it at the same time. You know, on the outside, you wouldn't have known. I was really into bodybuilding, you know, like I always sat at 10% body fat. I could rep to 25 on bench for 10. You know, I could squat to 25 for 10. I was really athletic. You know, I trained moitai. I was entrepreneurial. I started my first SEO company with a friend of mine who became a business partner at 21 years old. Then I got into another marketing company and became a co-founder. Then I started a supplement company with a few guys like on the outside, you would look at Bardi and say, dude, Bardi seems like a cool guy. He's kind of got a shit together, but he loves to party. I knew that like, I can't be the only one feeling this way, man. I would see all these other people in their 20s in the same cycle. Yet we go to fucking Google and it says only 10% of people have alcohol use disorder. That's fucking bullshit. I had alcohol use disorder from the very moment I picked up alcohol. I never filled out a fucking survey. Nobody asked me. I never did some study, some scientific study about my alcohol use disorder. I was suffering in silence. Nobody knew how bad it was, but it was robbing and destroying my soul because half of my entire soul and personality in mind was focused on fulfilling my potential. From the very first time I read a book at 14 years old, you'll see it when you believe it and introduce me to the concept of consciousness. From that moment, I was fucking hooked. I was like, I'm going to become successful. I'm going to figure this things out. I'm going to do something big in this world. I'm going to leave an impact. I'm going to make a mark. I feel it deep inside. I have the capacity. But then I discovered alcohol and dude, alcohol was the thing. Alcohol was the thing that was holding me back my entire life. Every time I would make any sort of forward progress in my life, I would be capped. I could never break through to the next level. Every time I would take three steps back, I would take two steps forward, I would take two steps back because of my drinking. I could never break through to the edge with my health, with my finances, with my relations, I was always capped, you know, and I was super dysregulated mentally and emotionally. There was so much trauma. There was so much pain for my past. There was so much heartache. There was so much unresolved tension and thoughts, you know, and I didn't know how to navigate that. And I was just stuck in this dopamine feeding cycle, you know, when Thursday, Friday would come around, man, the cravings were so fucking intense. I remember I'd fucking drive 90 miles away, 90 miles an hour home from work so I can get to the gas station and fucking drink. I'd get the thing and I'd start drinking in the car. I'd have a beer in the car on the way home. Like, dude, I was tonnual vision. I could run through a fucking concrete wall for it, you know, like that's how intense it was for me. And yeah, man, like did a lot of dumb shit, did a lot of partying, did all of it, did all of it in my 20s. Mixed cocaine into the deal, MDMA, all of it, you know. And then when things got really bad, and so here's like, here's what I've, okay, so I'll get back to that. So like, then the pandemic hits, right? The pandemic hits, and I think at the time I just like got fired from this other job and I'm sure alcohol to do with it, you know, I was drinking a lot. And pandemic hits, you know, and I'm working from home. I've got some money saved and I'm freelancing. I start this business and I'm selling, I start this online business and I'm selling disposable gloves all in the eye because, you know, people needed disposable gloves during the pandemic to stay away from germs and I make some money there. So I'm sitting on a little bit of cash and I'm like comfortable and dude, so I just start drinking every day, slowly but surely, weekend bingeing turns into everyday drinking. And once I start drinking everyday, man, the volume of alcohol rapidly increased, rapidly increased. And I get up to drinking four to six bottles of wine a day. That's like 20 to 25 glasses of wine, you know, and I would drink fast, you know, like, I don't pour like, when I would pour a glass, I would pour it up to the very top. I don't know why people pour their wine glass like a third way up. So I just fill it up to the top. I fill it up to the top and I chug it and I drink pink wine, pink rose, like cheap fucking pink wine. Just love the sugar, love the fucking taste of it. And I was chained smoking cigarettes. I was drinking, I was smoking like 20 cigarettes a day all day. I was just like playing video games. I was drinking and I was smoking back and forth. Just a theme, like a drug addict, like from computer to multiple drinks at the computer, then go outside and smoke a couple cigarettes, then come back, then go sit outside and listen to music, then back, you know, instant, like, dude, it was, it was bad. And this carried on for like six months. Now, meanwhile, throughout this time, I gained like 35 pounds. I had normally set it around like 165, 170 right now, like 163. And I got up to almost 200 pounds. And I've got like a couple photos and my face is fat, my face is swollen, my neck is fat, my jowls, like my, my upper traps are like bloated, like dude, it wasn't a good look. And I didn't realize I looked like that until I looked at a photo and I was like, holy fuck, like this is ridiculous. You know, my body is breaking down. I'm getting emotional. Now every night when I drink, I'm starting to cry. You know, I was doing exactly what my dad was doing, you know. And I remember I made this crazy connection in that moment. I was crying this one night. I was blasting these like sad fucking songs that I used to listen to. And I remember I was breaking down. I was crying and like, you know, my girlfriend, my ex girlfriend at the time was there. And I was like, and it hit me in that moment. And I was like, I think part of the reason I'm drinking is because I miss my dad, you know, and this makes me feel close to him because this is what he used to do. And that was like a really profound experience and connection that I had made to my drinking. And that was kind of crazy, you know. It was my way of trying to be with him and connect with him because he just fucking disappeared one day, you know. And I have dreams about my dad maybe once a year and every dream is the same. I end up seeing him and I'm like, where'd you go? Where were you? You know, and he's always kind of confused in the dream. He's like, oh, they just kind of like took me somewhere. And yeah. It's really crazy, man. And so, you know, going through all this stuff, man, like, you know, I'm drinking four to six bottles of wine a day and shit's breaking down. And you know, my hangovers, like, I, you know, I remember I'd get so fucked up. And then the next day I'd start drinking again at like 10 or 11 and within an hour of drinking again, dude, my world was spinning. The reality was spinning. I couldn't stand up straight. I'd be rolling on the ground just like moaning and groaning and agony. Like the worst hangover, you know, just like, just like, dude, fucked up shit. Like, and then one day like a, you know, this guy invites me out to the pool, my buddy. And he's like, hey, you know, let's go out to the pool. Let's, let's chill. And I was like, okay, we go out to the pool. I'd been drinking all day. And he, he, he's like, hey, you want a race? And I was like, of course, like, you know, he's like, I'll beat you. And I was like, there's no way you can beat me. Like I legit have never lost a race, swimming race against anybody in my entire life. Like I'm pretty naturally athletic. And it doesn't matter who you are. Like I beat every single person. I'm just, I'm faster. You know, I'm stronger and I'm faster and I'm more athletic. I've never lost a race. And he really challenged me. He's like, dude, I'll for sure beat you. He's like, I'm a really fat swimmer. I was like, there's no fucking way. So we queue up to race. And you know, I, I push off the edge and I'm swimming as fast as I can. And I'm ahead of him. I'm ahead of him. And probably around 65, 70% of the way through as we get to the other side of the pool. I'm swimming so aggressively that my left shoulder like rips out of its socket and is like backwards hanging mangled. And it's in that moment like I just felt it. It was like a crackle and a rip and a pop. And I immediately stopped and I get up and he keeps swimming. He gets to the edge. And I'm just screaming at this point. I'm like, fuck, you know. And he stops. Everyone around stops. There's like a couple people there just like chilling my ex girlfriend and like I think her sister. And it was brutal and it was brutal. And it was the most excruciating pain of my life. I had never felt that type of pain before. And it was out, dude. I didn't know how to get it back in. It was it was ripped, twisted, upside down. And I was like sitting there. I was under the water. Like I couldn't lift it up out of the water because any weight that I would apply to it would just make it worse. So I was under the water up to my neck. And I was like just holding my shoulder in this excruciating pain. And I'm just like trying to figure out like, what am I going to do here? Like how am I supposed to get this thing back in? And I'm like, I've got my hand on my shoulder and I'm kind of like trying to figure out what a shoulder is supposed to feel like. And I like, you know, I'm wiggling it. Nothing's happening. It's like when I wiggling it this way, it hurts even more. And dude, it was out for like, I don't know, 10 minutes. 10 minutes, I'm just sitting there. Like I'm fucked. Like what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to call an ambulance? Like what am I supposed to do here? And dude, after sitting there for like 10 minutes trying to figure this thing out, like by the grace of God, it kind of falls back into place. And so, you know, I get out of the pool and I like put it in like this sling. I didn't even have a sling. It was like a scarf. I make like a makeshift sling with this scarf. And yeah, I just, I rode out the rest of the day and in pain. And then I woke up the next morning and I could not move my shoulder or arm or elbow though, even a quarter of one half inch in any direction or it would immediately go to 12 out of 10 pain, 15 out of 10, like unbearable, unbearable. And I was like, okay, well, this is fucked. So drove to the emergency room and you know sat there for 30 minutes. They take me in and I can't even remember what happened. But I think they took a scan or something or an x-ray and they, dude, I don't even know. Can't remember. But basically, I left and they're just like put it in a sling. It should get better on its own. I think they saw that nothing was broken, or there was maybe a minor fracture or something. I didn't do an MRI, so I couldn't see the damage to the muscle and the tissue. So I go, I buy a sling, and in that moment, when my arm was dangling, and I was in the most excruciating pain of my life, my entire life, I ran through it like a movie. And in that moment, I realized that this would not have happened if I wasn't drinking. So this pain that I'm feeling was a result of alcohol, and that was the first step, that was the first step, and that's the first step that you need to fucking get to. You hear me say this a thousand times in all my content. Maybe this is providing context, okay? You have to get clear on the pain. Alcohol will put you in denial. You'll keep ignoring the fact that you're fucking your life up. You'll keep ignoring the fact that you're fucking up your kids, that you're coming short as a parent, that you're fucking up your relationship with your partner. You know, you got married. If you got married and you made vows on the beach or in a church and you looked in each other's eyes, and you said, "I'm gonna be with you till death do us part through sickness and through health and whatever." They didn't sign up for that. They didn't sign up. You weren't an alcoholic then. You know, and you're putting strain on somebody else's life, okay? And that's not fair. So you have to look at the pain. That was my pain. It was physical pain. I could take emotional pain like a fucking animal. I'd gone through so much emotional pain that like, "Dude, emotional pain never scared me. I could handle anything you could fucking throw at me emotionally." But physical pain I always hated. Physical pain was like a different type of pain that I didn't like. And in that moment, man, the physical pain was so real and I just connected it. I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I couldn't weasel myself anymore. I couldn't say, "Oh, it's gonna be different next time." I was like, "Dude, listen. I played my cards. I had every opportunity over 15 years to try to manage and monitor it and control my drinking." You know, I tried multiple times with no successful attempts 'cause I always went back. And like, dude, I proved to myself. I had free time. I had a little bit of savings so I didn't have to constantly worry about money. And look what I did. Look where I ended up. I was like, "Look, you did this." I, in that moment, I just took full ownership and responsibility for, "This is my life." And this is because of alcohol. I wouldn't have done this if it wasn't for, for, for, and then I reflected like, "Look at the last six months of your life. I was 29 years old at the time. I was a few months away from turning 30." Now, I don't know about you, but since I was a kid, 12, 13, 14 years old, I remember talking with my friends, trying to imagine what it was gonna be like as an adult. Where my life would be at 30. I thought I'd be a millionaire. I thought maybe, you know, I'd be married. I thought maybe I'd be, you know, whatever, right? Like, we all have these conceptions. If you're a woman, you probably think you're gonna be married and you're gonna have met, you know, your spouse and maybe you'll have a couple kids and a white picket fence and you'll be established in your career. You know, as I thought about who I would be at 30, it was really less about those things, had nothing to do with the money. It had nothing to do with my career. What it had to do with, was this vision I had of my truth. I was like, this is not an alignment with who I am. The person talking to you now, the stop drinking coach, this was my vision for who I could be. The way that I'm showing up to the world now, living selflessly, it's not about me. I'm here, my only purpose is to take in data, to synthesize it, to repackage it, to give it away to improve other people's lives. That is the only thing that I think is a worthy mission and purpose and pursuit in this life we call being a human. And I'm so deeply connected to that. That's the only thing that makes sense for me. I can't see, I can't quantify or conceptualize any other way to go about it. Maybe you can, maybe for other people, it's to paint or to draw or to sing or to write music or to whatever else. But this is me, like gaining information about the human experience, about the mind, the emotional system and how to navigate this effectively, synthesize it, understand it, simplify it, package it and create a path and a process for other people to follow. This, what I'm doing now is the dream, is what I imagined, is what I envisioned for myself. And in that moment, I was like, dude, I'm fucking nowhere near this. There's no way, I'm a universe in a half, I'm a multiverse in a half in a way from being that person. And as I reflected on it and I was honest with myself, I was like, dude, the only thing that's stopping me from that is alcohol. It was just so real and fucking clear in that moment. Because I knew, man, over those last 10 years in my 20s, when I wasn't drinking, I was a stud. When I wasn't drinking, like, when I was on, when I took little breaks from alcohol, my mindset, my motivation, my consistency, my confidence, the way I showed up, it was good. It was like the real bar, I was like, yeah, that guy's good. Like, I'm connected to him and I know, like, I know there's something that can come from that. But it was the alcohol that always got in the way. And I knew that. And at 29, when life hit me like a fucking truck and the pain was great, and I was about to turn 30 and I realized I was a universe and a half away from that and that the only thing that was stopping me really, really. Of course, I had to heal and I had to grow and I had to improve my confidence in self-esteem and expand my map of reality and all the things that I had to do to get here, right? Just removing the alcohol didn't produce this party. There was an incredible amount of fucking work that went into it over the last two and a half years. But I just knew that if I like, remove the alcohol, the ability to tap that was possible. And that's what I encourage you to do. That's what you need to do. This is a non-negotiable. If you want to reclaim ownership over your soul, this is a non-negotiable. This is what you have to do. Removing alcohol for most people, man, like I had my existential crisis at 14. Some people don't have their real major existential crisis until they're 50 or 60 or 40. And it doesn't matter what time it is. You just, you need to finally fucking look inward and say, who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I so afraid of? Whose opinions am I letting drive my fucking life? Like, what are we doing here, man? Alcohol's a fucking distraction towards you facing the fact that you're gonna die one day and you don't know why you're here or what you're supposed to do. So you fucking drink. Stop, stop that. Fucking look at it, examine it, discover who you are and then create who you are. I am every single day in the process of both discovering and creating myself into what my mind can envision. It's the first thing you learn and you'll see it when you believe it. Most people live their life trying to say, I'm not gonna believe it until I see it. For example, the example he gives is like, microscopes. He says billions of people didn't believe that microscopic life existed until they saw it and then once they saw it, then they believed, right? But like, that's not how life works, man. Personal development mindset, million podcasts condensed into one single sentence. You have to believe that it's possible first. Everything starts as a thought. Everything starts in your mind. Reality is a mirror to your consciousness. The world that you think you see out there, it's not out there. It all exists within your mind because when you take the mind away, the whole thing disappears. Therefore, what is fundamental in primary before everything else, meaning the very end of the layer that there's no more layers to peel, is your consciousness. You are the filter for reality. And so you have to begin to understand what you are. You have to begin learning how to navigate yourself internally. Like the two fundamental things that every human being needs to learn and understand before anything fucking else, this should have been part of our curriculum growing up as children. Is mental and emotional regulation because if you do not have mental your emotional regulation, your life will never be what it could be. Because mental and emotional regulation is primary. You have the space of consciousness, which is the awareness. Then you have your thoughts, then you have your emotional system. All of reality, all of it, all of it is filtered through your mind and your emotional system. These two things are primary. So if you do not know how to mentally and emotionally regulate yourself, you have nothing. Even if you think you have it, you don't have it. You're a slave to the programs. And this is what quitting drinking is all about, dude. It's not about fucking giving up the bar scene and missing out on a vacation. No, it's about your fucking spiritual evolution. It's about coming home to yourself and finally discovering the fabric of who and what you are as a organic piece of matter that appeared out of a trillion year void and 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago. Like one was the last time you reflected inward and really sat and did some real self-examination. Dude, I'm just some fucking person that was born in LA, moved to Orange County, grew up in a fucked up family, but sat there and observed at the entire time and stayed passionately curious about trying to figure out what this thing is. This entire time, I remember like I started to become conscious around six or seven years old. I'd be sitting on the toilet, I remember, and also now have these like profound like shoes, like bouts of like super intense presence where I'd like, I'd wake up all of a sudden. It was like consciousness coming in and I would like, I would put my hands out in front of me and I would open and close my fists and look at my fingers and be like, what is this thing? I didn't ask to be born and now I'm here. Why do I have eyes? Why do I have fingers? Why is it like this? I remember at like six or seven years old thinking like, is this some sort of virtual reality? What is the purpose of this thing? Are all these people here for me? Like are these part of my game, my character? Like what is happening? And those moments were so intense for me that like it, and you can hear it. Like if you're watching this, like I'm moving my body, it's so mind-boggling for me being alive. There's nothing normal about this experience. You wake up, you go to sleep, you go to work, you wake up, you go to sleep, like dude, people, society people are living like drones. They're an autopilot. They've taken all of the conditioning of the matrix of the government, of what foods to eat, of how to live, of what to do, of how to spend your time. And just like never taking time to look inward. Who are you? What do you want? Where are you going? What is your unique gifts? What is your unique talents? How do you want to express yourself? Like dude, this stuff, this stuff goes deep and it's so multifaceted. Quitting drinking, it's not about alcohol. It's about you coming home to your humanity and discovering what do you want? What do you want to do? Do you realize that it's not forever? Do you realize that the time is ticking and that this isn't. You have an undisclosed, undetermined amount of time? This is not a fucking yolo excuse, oh you only live once, so go out and fucking drink. That's dog shit. That's dog shit. That, the fact that you're only here for a limited amount of time, should. If you really sit with it, if you really meditate on your mortality, momentum, or the stoke, philosophy, and idea of meditating on your mortality, if you really. Have you ever done it? Have you ever closed your eyes and tried to imagine going back into the oblivion for eternity? Dude, every second is fucking precious. What are you doing numbing out? What are you doing? What are you so afraid of? The craving, the anxiety, missing out on a fucking vacation? Thinking that you're like FOMO? What you should be afraid of is not tapping your potential, of not seeing what you're capable of, of not tapping into the deepest levels of love, of vulnerability, of truth, of helping other people grow, other people develop life. Like, one thing that you discover man is that alcoholics are fucking selfish people. I was so fucking selfish the. All the time I was drinking, it was all about me. I, because I wanted to get high, I wanted to be numb. It was all about my fucking dopamine. You know? I didn't give a fuck what anybody did. I became the most selfish fucking person when I drank alcohol. Once alcohol got into my system, I didn't give a fuck who I was with. I smoked in my friend's cars after they told me not to. We'd gone a trip and I'd asked them to pull over fucking ten times, because I'd have to fucking take a piss. Like, I was annoying. I was fucking annoying. You know? I was so fucking selfish and like, it's not about me anymore. I don't live my life. It's not really about me. All of my needs get met as a result of helping you. That's why I'm here. And that's how I'm going to continue to live until life presents some new thing. But for the foreseeable future, my only mission and purpose is to help you come back home to yourself and learn how to navigate this thing so that you can escape the slavery like I did. And man, I can't tell you. I can't tell you what's waiting for you on the other side. It's more beautiful than you can begin to imagine. Everybody thinks in the beginning and I did too. You think quitting drinking is sad and lonely and depressing. And I'm going to be bored. Like, sure, man, you've listened. You've been fucking drugging yourself for 20 to 30 years. It's going to take a little bit of time for your neurochemistry to come back. Like for you to redevelop habits to you to induce self-directed neuroplasticity to change your mind, change your behaviors. Like, that's what we're here. This is a learning ground. The human experience is a playground to learn. And there's always going to be an x level every time you hit a new level. Right. But what is waiting for you on the other side is the most profound deep spiritual connection. The most profound deep level of happiness and joy and freedom. It's not a life of fucking misery and boredom and missing out and perpetual longing. Sure, you're going to have cravings for alcohol. Sure. Are you going to think about drinking? Sure. But you don't have to act on it. You can develop the tools and skills to develop a real agency. Real sovereignty is a human being. But you have to believe it's possible. You have to believe it's possible. If you sit around and walk and just blame it on a fucking disease all the time, you're never going to fucking get out. You're always going to be living in the shadow of this thing. If you do not take like a proactive approach, if you do not like do something that is going to change. Right. Like if you've always done what you've always done, you're always going to get what you've always got. You have to change and change is hard sometimes. Change with change comes discomfort. For no other reason, then you haven't developed the neural pathways for it. You got to understand the human operating system. Who you think you are is a fabrication. It's an illusion. It's the ego. What you are is a piece of organic matter. And you're a conscious witness to it. And when you begin to better understand the brain and the nervous system and how these different things connect together and work like dude, it all just starts to make more sense. All just starts to make more sense. You know. So, you know, when I quit drinking, I held on to two things. I held on to the pain. I knew if I ever picked up alcohol again, it would get back to what it was. I'm not going to fucking dilute myself. And you need to fucking stop lying to yourself. How old are you? 30, 40, 50, 60 years old. You really think it's going to be fucking different? Don't bullshit yourself. That's what a fucking seven year old does. That's what a five year old does. They fantasize. Okay. Look at the trends. Look at the data. Look at the numbers. Treat yourself like the CEO of your life. If you were a fucking CEO and you had an employee and they told you that they were going to come in at 8 a.m. And 9 out of 10 times they come in at 8 30 or 9 or they don't fucking show up at all. And they do that for 40 years. When are you going to fucking look at the trend? Okay. I know you're afraid of giving up the dopamine. Everybody is dude. We're bio we're we're biological systems. The only reason I am here and you are here is because of dopamine. Alcohol comes in like a Trojan horse and taps that center. Four X-habitants. You're not meant to experience that. The high in the euphoria and the drug induced feelings that you get from alcohol. You're not meant to experience. It's a drug. It's a drug. That's not normal. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Life, your system comes hardwired and equipped to experience as much pleasure and fulfillment that you need. Naturally, through the things that are natural in life. You don't need it, but I know it feels like you do, but you don't, dude. And this is coming from somebody who is drinking four to six bottles of wine a day, an absolute fiend. You know, you don't need it. It takes time, but you have to develop the courage to face the pain. That is how you grow. You're an adult now. It's time to stop running. It is time to stop running. And I know like, dude, I'm taking a trauma-informed approach. Like I get it. I get it. The pain is real. The abuse is real. The trauma is real. The hurt is real. The sadness is real. The damage is real. But at what point are we going to have the conversation to say it's like, dude, part of being an adult, not being a six-year-old or a seven-year-old or a ten-year-old, is having courage, having courage to turn towards the thing that we fear. And realizing that the thing that we fear, the thing that's hard, the thing that's painful, is the very thing. Is the very thing that leads you to your enlightenment. You have to remember that working through the pain, turning towards the pain, overcoming the discomfort, overcoming the anxiety, working through the craving. You think that what's on the other side is more fear and more pain, but it's liberation. It's freedom. It is the thing that you have been longing for your entire life. But you can never have it. You have to earn it, my friend. That's why money just doesn't appear in your bank account no matter how much you want it. You have to earn it. It is an exchange of energy. It is an exchange of value. And the things that you want, the things that are the nectar that you can only earn from doing the work, like it has to be earned. You have to put in the work. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Especially not in this space, especially not in the space of overcoming an addiction. You have to fucking earn it. That's why you go to my TikTok, man. Go to those videos where I say I fucking respect people who quit drinking alcohol. It has like 10,000 comments or 40,000 comments. It's something crazy. And all the people, all of them who got sober say it was the best decision of their life. And you have to realize that you're not different from any of them. I craved alcohol. I missed the dopamine in the beginning. I felt bored. I felt the anxiety along with every other fucking person who does it. Welcome to the club. Join the club. It's better this way. But you have to earn it. You know, you have to earn it. All of it. You have to earn all of it through putting in work. Our society is fucking soft in 2023. We have paved roads. We have hospitals. We have grocery stores. You know, you have target. You have Walmart. You don't have to fucking work for anything. You don't have to go out hunt. You don't have to put your life on the line. You have to sit behind a computer man. Like sack the fuck up. You know, realize that every other organism that is not a human on this planet has to fight for its survival. It has to kill other animals. It has to rip off the heads of other animals. It has to bite into its neck and eat its organs if it wants to get fed. And we've got grocery stores. And that's softens people. Yeah, you have to work. You have to push. You have to grind. You have to do things when you don't want to do them. You have to make sacrifices. Or you don't don't. If you don't want to stop drinking, stop bitching and complaining about it. Just fucking drink. You know, like Sean, the guy I was telling you about, he's sponsored all these people and like he used to tell me like if somebody called him and they're like, Sean, I think I'm about to drink. Be like, all right, do it. And they'd like get confused. They'd be like, what is like fucking do it? You want to drink drink. And they'd be like thrown off. They're like, you're supposed to talk me out of it. You're my sponsor. He's like, no, if you want to drink, go fucking drink. And then watch what happens. Call me tomorrow. And like, dude, it's just fucking true. Like, when are we going to fucking learn? You know, so I know I've gone on like multiple tangents here and like, this is supposed to be my story. But I'm just riffing, man. I'm just letting out the things that I need to let out that are true to my soul. So hopefully they reach you. Hopefully the right word or the right message or the right notion or inflection at a certain sentence is the thing that wakes you up and clicks. So I quit drinking at 29 and I started working with this coaching company and they're like, if you want to work with us, you've, you've got to run through our system. So you understand it. So I became a client. And I, and I work that system. And throughout that time, it kept me sober and it, my life, continually started getting better and better and better in every way. And then a few months into it. I was like, I want to become a coach like this is going through that system and reading the books and expanding my map of reality and the course material like it introduced it helped me understand myself in a way nothing else ever had. All the books I read the thousands of hours of podcasts I listened to the way they broke it down. It all made sense to me. I was like, oh, oh, I get it now. I understand why I am the way that I am. I understand trauma. I understand my subconscious mind. I understand my childhood. I understand my patterns, my programs, my beliefs. I understand all of it. It makes sense now. And I started to heal. And I started to step into a version of myself that was more aligned with that vision of myself that I had. Every single day through this system, which is the same system that I use for all my clients, which creates profound personal transformation. And throughout that time, I coached like 50 guys, right, very early into becoming a coach. I was helping men transform their mindset, their belief systems, their business. It's like I was tooled for it. All the work that I done on myself, all the books that I read, like it was like I was tooled for it. I led four different retreats, 72 hour retreats. And I worked with them for, you know, about a year, year and a half. And then I got to the place where, you know, I really wanted autonomy. And so I left them. And for a few months, I kind of, I did some freelance marketing stuff because that was kind of my background. I didn't immediately get into coaching. But I remember like around February of, you know, a couple months before I started stop drinking coach. I remember I was doing some journaling and I wanted some deep self reflection. And I set this really profound, energetic intention. And I told myself, I'm done with marketing. I'm going to get into coaching. I'm tired of this marketing stuff. I'm going to get into coaching because this is what I feel called to do. And, you know, so about a month later, I start my TikTok and I just start posting some random mindset and personal development stuff. Didn't really know where it was going to go, but I was like, hey, let's just get on video. Let's start expressing my voice. Let me start leaning into video and seeing what I can do here because I remember when I was like 19 or 20. I had this download that it wasn't mine. It came from somewhere else and it was implanted into my brain. And it said, you need to be on video and you need to use your voice. And I didn't know how the fuck I was supposed to do that at 19 years old. I tried starting YouTube channels a bunch of times, but like nothing really stuck. Nothing really clicked. And so I start that TikTok and then like a buddy of mine comes into town. I was posting every day for like a week. Buddy of mine comes into town. I got distracted and I didn't post for like three weeks. And then this video pops up on TikTok and it's talking about sobriety and I went into the comments and there is a lot of comments of people saying, how do you do it? I need help. I need support. Day five, day six, day 10, just relapse. I'm like, huh. What I saw in the comments was that there was a lot of pain. Pain that I'd overcome. Pain that I had learned how to process and work through. And so I made this really silly video. I was laying there and I was almost not going to post it. I was almost not going to post it. And I made this really silly video of like, you know, the pool was out in front of me and I had like my camera on my stomach and like you can see the bottom of my like top of my feet in the pool in front of me. And it was five ways my life got better after I quit drinking. And it was just like some kind of inspirational music in the background and then five little texts pop up. And then that video like all my videos before that we're getting out of no hundred views 200 views, whatever no traction three hundred views. And then that video all of a sudden got like 5,000 views in the first 30 minutes and I never got 5000 views before and I was like, huh, that's interesting. And then within an hour, it was up to like 25,000. And by the end of the day, it was at like 50,000 views. And I had all these likes pouring in and all these comments, people commenting about, you know, congrats on your sobriety. That's amazing. I got sober. But then there's a horde of people talking about like, how'd you do it? You know, I'm on day five. I'm struggling. I'm struggling. And so I started doing video responses to these people. And I just started sharing my insight and my wisdom and my understanding of how I've navigated this journey and all the different capacities and how I've come to understand getting sober and quitting drinking without AA, without therapy, although therapy is good for some people, they need it. But without AA, in the way that I did through coaching and through all the other modalities. And, um, man, the content just started taking off. It just started taking off. It was doing really well. And I was like, there's something here. I'm just going to keep writing this wave. And I keep following the views. I feel aligned to this. I'm an expert at this. I've spent the last 15 years of my life, every fucking waking hour, thinking about alcohol and processing this and figuring out how to escape it and all the other things. And then once I got a thousand followers, I threw a calendar link in my bio. And people started booking calls with me. And in the beginning, I wasn't even selling anything or offering anything. I was just getting on the phone with people and talking to them, trying to understand their story, trying to share wisdom, trying to share insights, trying to share tips, advice. And eventually, you know, I kind of got to the point after, I don't know, dozens and dozens of phone calls where I was like, I think I'm ready. You know, I'm going to take on my first client. I'm going to help somebody. And then I had a few people come on board. And it's just dude, it just started to grow. And I started to, you know, I tweaked my program over time, things improved, things developed. And now I've helped, I've probably worked with 140, 150 people over the last 12 months. And I built a stop drinking coach brand. And it's crazy, man. It's crazy. You know, I set that energetic intention that I was done with, done with marketing and that I was going to get into coaching. And it just, when I saw the pain in the comments, the universe just aligned. I was like, this is it. This is what I'm uniquely tooled to do. My entire life from the very moment I was born has been centered around alcohol and the destruction of alcohol and addiction. And I've, and I've, and I spent 15 years figuring, trying to, I spent 15 years of my life studying everything I could about the mind addiction, emotions like psychology, philosophy, spirituality, all the personal development books, 200 of them, thousands of hours of all the famous major podcasts, all the Andrew Huberman's that exists, all the fitness guys, all the health guys, all the Tim Ferriss's, all the, you know, and then, you know, it just, it just, it all divinely happened in perfect order and in perfect unison for me to be here. You know, like, I had to go through, like it was all divine the order. How to, when they say, how do you know when you're healed? I think you know when you're healed, when you can look back on the things that were painful, and they can either be neutral or positive. There's no more pain. There's no more suffering. And when I look back on my life, when I look at the sperm and the egg that unified to build me, this was the divine plan. This was the divine destiny. It makes sense while my, why my other businesses never worked out. It makes sense why the relationships I had didn't work out. It makes sense why every single person I ever met, every relationship, every fork in the road, every pain, every tragedy, every positive. It led me perfectly to drinking four to six bottles of wine a day, destroying my fucking shoulder, destroying my life, waking up, and doing it at 29, where I had the capacity for context of, I'm about to turn 30, and letting the fear of not reaching my potential, and the fear of having my 30s be a slave like fucking half-in, half-out existence, like my 20s was, the fear of that drive me to stop. It was perfectly divinely ordered. You know who introduced me to the guy who runs that coaching company, Sean? It was divinely ordered for me to meet Sean, for Sean to come into my life like an angel. It was divinely ordered for my dad to die. It was divinely ordered for me to be born into the exact type of family to experience all the traumas and pains so that I can speak to them, so that I can understand and empathize and connect, and know how to solve those problems. All of it was perfectly divinely ordered for me. None of it was not for me. The universe blessed me. This is all a gift. And your alcoholism is a gift for you. Maybe your story isn't the same as mine, but if you can look back and synthesize your past and your experiences for you, you can find the gold, you can find the nuggets, you can find the silver linings. It was all divinely ordered for me to be here now, building the stop-drinking coach and starting this movement. I'm building something separate and it has the word movement in it. And I haven't launched it yet and I haven't really talked about it yet. But like stop-drinking coach is my personal brand, but there's an off-shoot coming that's going to be much bigger. The plan is to do a lot more for this space, for millions of people. But it was divinely ordered. I wasn't ready to get sober at 21. I wasn't ready to get sober at 25. It had to happen exactly. I met Sean. Sean introduced me to the guy who runs that coaching company. What are the odds that I just happened to get into work for a coaching company and start working a coaching program right when I got sober? I could have done that at. What are the odds? One in a million, I guess. One in however many types of companies exist. It's pretty slim. That timing. Yeah, man. That's the story. I didn't tell it perfectly. I jumped around a lot. I probably left out a lot. But I just want you to know, dude, if you're on this journey, it's for you. This is your soul's curriculum. This is part of your syllabus. Overcoming an addiction has nothing to do with fucking alcohol. Okay? It is your return home journey. It is your ticket back home to yourself to begin addressing the things that you have ignored about your life that are necessary, that are important, that are vital. And all of this stuff is bigger than you. You have to understand that. Okay? It's bigger than you. You have a mission. You have a purpose. You have a destiny to help others, to impact others, to be the leader in your family, to be the leader to your kids, to be the leader for your partner, to be the leader for your community, to inspire your friends who are still fucking drinking. We're here to help other people, man. That's what this game is. We're not here to just fill our fucking bellies. Okay? You are here. You experience pains. You experience challenges, so that you can learn how to work through them, so that you can glean their insights, their wisdom, so you can develop strength and build your character, so that you can become a person of value to then lead and mentor other people through those same problems. Look at the world of books. Every fucking book that exists is following that path. If you've ever read a book, it's somebody who had a lot of pain, synthesized it, figured out how to overcome it, and then gave you the fucking step-by-step. What do you think university is? What do you think going to school is? People figure shit out in life. They integrate it, and then they give it away to others. That is how evolution occurs. One person learns how to make fire. They tell the tribe. Then everybody learns how to make fire. Dude. So start looking inward. What is your unique gift? How do you want to express? I'll tell you. The day you're going to begin really feeling connected to yourself and aligned and finding fulfillment, is when you stop focusing on yourself and you start figuring out how you can use all the wisdom and skills and talents, and ideas and inspiration, and that you have that you've developed through your pain and struggles, and you start giving it away to other people. That is how. That is that is that is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When you get all your personal needs met and you figure your stuff out, you just you fulfill your potential at that point and your potential is limitless. It is constrained only by the fabric of what you think is possible or not possible. And if you open up your mind, if you open up your mind, truly anything is fucking possible. There's nobody that's going to hold you hold a gun to your head to tell you that you can't do something. Anything is fucking possible. Somebody else has done it, you can do it. You just have to want it. You have to commit. You have to sacrifice. You have to prioritize. You have to realign your values and you just take it one day at a time. That's it. How anything is done. A $100 million mansion is built one brick at a time. The way that you stay sober for 10 years is one day at a time. The way you achieve your first six to 12 months of sobriety is you just take it one day at a time. Every day, one time, you make a commitment that you're just not you're going to do anything you fucking have to do to not drink. You call someone, you go on a run, you sprint down the fucking street like a fucking maniac to tire yourself out to change your physiology to get rid of the craving. You just do it one day at a time. And as you stack enough of those one days at a time and you work a proactive system like the one I have that optimizes you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, neurochemically, and expands your map of reality of human consciousness helps you develop sovereignty helps you develop personal power helps you develop a real sense of agency in your life. Anything is possible. Whatever you want is is yours. But it all starts with you developing the courage to face the discomfort. The discomfort doesn't last forever. Go back to my episode of It's scary and hard in the beginning, but then it gets better. I'm telling you, you think that this this process is as you living a life that's dull and come on, man. Come on. I have 15 journals that I filled out in my 20s about my goals and aspirations and dreams and I have checked off every single one of those boxes. And I'm a year into stop drinking coach and I'm two and a half years sober. I've still got another 60 years left. 70 years left. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding? This is just beginning. Your life, your story is just beginning. If there's a book written about you, the chapter you quit drinking is the chapter, everything fucking changes. You think you know what you've done and what you've built. Remove the alcohol long enough. Learn the stuff that I've been talking about over the last hour. Dude, you haven't even scratched what you're capable of. Not just in like your business or life or career, like what you're capable of in terms of the depths that you can explore, the untapped territory that exists within your mind, body and consciousness. It's like doing mushrooms. If you've ever done a high dose of mushrooms, a hero's dose, I don't recommend it. Five grams. It takes you into an altered state of consciousness. It takes you into a different universe. The way that it shifts your five sensory data apparatus, it opens up doors that you could not possibly have even conceived of if somebody offered to give you 10 trillion dollars. You don't know what you don't know. It is something that is foreign. It is alien to you. And it is only through this deep process of coming home to yourself and digging deep into your mental, emotional and spiritual connection, expanding your map of what is possible that you can move into those territories. It's better than you can begin to imagine, my friend. Okay, you're not working a program here to just, this is Quentin Drinken and yeah, my friends are gonna go out without me. Come on, dude. Should as nonsense. Should as nonsense. So hope this was helpful for you. I know this is a bit of a different episode. Took some twists and turns, but I appreciate you listening. And you know, if you're if you're tired of this thing, if you're done, if you really just want to step into a new chapter, visit my website www.TheStopDrinkingCoach.com. Fill out an application and I'll follow up with you. Right now, everything is one-on-one, plan on moving towards group coaching so that I can scale out and help more people because my time is limited, but fill an application and we'll connect and share this with somebody you know. Share this with somebody who you think might be struggling. And if you haven't left a review, I would appreciate if you left a five-star review. It'll just help, it'll help the podcast move up the ranks and reach more people who could use this information. So thank you so much and I will see you in the next episode. Hey, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast, leave a five-star review and share it with your friends or someone you know who might be struggling with alcohol. And if you feel like you're ready to finally transform your relationship with alcohol, visit www.TheStopDrinkingCoach.com and book a call with me. I offer private one-on-one and group coaching to make letting go of alcohol easier and more sustainable than you ever thought possible. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.