Why Accountability Changes Everything

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 of the Stop Drinking Coach podcast. My name is Barti Arez. I'm your host. I'm the Stop Drinking Coach. And today I'm going to be diving into a very, very, very important topic that is, I feel like the foundation of success when it comes to this process of quitting drinking. And as the title of the episode clearly states, you know, why you need in capital letters, why you need accountability. You know, as I look back on the last two and a half plus years of my sobriety, the one thing that was the most monumental, the most impactful in terms of really helping me hit that first year alcohol free was having accountability, was having support. You have to understand, man, that like very, very, very, very few people do this thing alone. The reason, and the only reason, in my opinion, the 12 step deal has stuck around the AADL is because of community. There is a tremendous amount of power that is unexplainable that comes from rubbing shoulders with and being connected to and supported by people who are on the same mission, wavelength and frequency that you are. And like, as I look back on the last, like I said, two and a half plus years of my sobriety, two, if I didn't have accountability, month six, month eight, like those were some rocky times for me because I was like six months sober. I had passed the longest time I'd ever been sober. I just moved to a new state, you know, I was like meeting new people. I was in a new environment. I mean, Austin as a city is like a drinking city. There's strips of bars and, you know, there's so much like nightlife here and due to, it was a crazy time and the thought and idea ran through my head just like it does for everybody. You know, you start rationalizing with yourself. You start coming up with scenarios and maybe I'm different now and maybe, you know, like, you know, I've been working a program and I've been meditating. I'm sure it's going to be different, right? Like all these rationalizations that we come up with. But I was accountable. You know, I was accountable to the program I was part of. I was accountable to the community. And due to if I didn't have that, if I was a lone wolf trying to do this thing, I don't, I wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be listening to my voice and you would not be getting all the value that you've gotten from all my content and all my podcasts, which has probably changed your life and has been supporting you in transforming your understanding of alcohol and in everything else. You know, if I didn't have that accountability, I can honestly say that there's a really good chance I would have went back to drinking, you know, and so accountability is so, so important man. And so I really want to take some time to dig into accountability, what it means, some like, some stats around it, some ways to really think about this thing because, dude, accountability is, it's everything. When we have accountability, we will perform and outperform and step up to the plate and do things that we normally would not do on our own. So real quick, like I just want to jump in, I found some stats online. So they've done research studies around accountability and they say, here, here the percentages, okay, and you can look this up, you can do research on accountability yourself, if, you know, check it out. Having an idea or a goal will increase your chances of achieving that goal by 10%. So, you know, you just, you have an idea of something, okay, you're 10%. And closer to possibly achieving it, okay. Now if you consciously decide that you're going to pursue that goal, the chances of succeeding go up to 25%. Okay. Now if you set a date and you get specific around when you're going to start the goal, your chances of actually doing it will go to 40%. If you now take that goal or that thing that you want to accomplish and do and you plan to do it, you break it down step by step methodically, the system, the process, your chances of doing it go up to 50%. Okay. Now if you commit to somebody that you will do it, let's say you tell somebody, hey John, hey mom, hey dad, hey wife, hey husband, hey kids, hey friend, I'm going to do this thing. Well now that you've told somebody your commitment to doing it, that increases your chances of doing it by 65%. Okay. Now if you have specific, if you actually establish a specific accountability appointment with somebody that you've committed to, your chances of now completing that thing and being successful goes up to 95%. I mean, that is absolutely insane. It's almost 100%. If you tell somebody you're going to do something, you have a goal and then you actually have to show up like on a weekly call that you have with me because I have a one-on-one coaching program that's going to help you step into the next chapter of your life, help you quit drinking and really begin this process of fulfilling your potential. If you have to meet with me once a week, dude, your chances of following through grow up dramatically, it is absolutely insane and I felt that. I experienced that myself when I was going through this because I had to be accountable. I had to show up. I had to be on calls. I had to talk to a coach. Dude, it is an absolute game changer. If you've been trying to do this for years, for months, several attempts, you get a little bit of time and then you go back a little bit of time and then you go back a week, a few days, maybe you get a 30 day dry January but you always find yourself going back. You need to plug into a system. You need to have a cadence to follow and there needs to be a level of accountability. Do you have to have it for the rest of your life? No, I don't think so. But at least for the first six to 12 months is you're building a good foundation for yourself because you have to remember, man, quitting drinking has nothing to do with alcohol. As soon as you come into my program and it starts to become very apparent to you is with everything that I've laid out, if you so choose, like, dude, quitting drinking has nothing to do with alcohol. It's learning how to address all of the other things, right? I say, we're not quitting drinking. What we're doing is we're learning how to live alcohol free. As a result of pursuing this process of learning how to live a life free from alcohol, you will transform beyond your wildest imagination, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, behaviorally, within your consciousness and the way that you show up and the way that you communicate and the way that you lead in the role model that you become in the example that you set for other people. Dude, it is absolutely wild. Like when you begin fulfilling your potential and I hope it's starting to become clear to you. Like, dude, alcohol is a drug. Alcohol is a poison. It's like pouring mud into a profound supercomputer. Literally, that's what it is. It's a poisonous compound that damages the functioning of all your systems, all your organs, your nervous system, your brain, the functioning of your organs, your energy, your metabolism, the way that you accumulate fat on your body. Like, dude, everything gets negatively impacted by alcohol. Sure, there's a 15, 20, 30 minute little rush of euphoria, but you have to begin to step back and look at the data, look at the science, look at the trends. Like imagine you're a business owner and this vehicle is your business, right? If you were a business owner and you're looking at reports, financial reports, whatever it might be, you're looking at data within your business, marketing reports, and like, dude, this thing, this part is just siphoning. It's just hemorrhaging cash. It's hemorrhaging money every month. Not just the financial cost of alcohol, a few hundred dollars a month, some people are reaching out to me spending a thousand, fifteen hundred a month. Besides that, I'm saying like, dude, it's hemorrhaging all the energy, all the mental health, all the emotional health, all the physical health. It's damaging other departments within the business. It's damaging the relationship, the marriage, the kids, the employer. Like, dude, this part of the business is not doing well. So we need to learn how to remove this part of the business that's destroying everything. And when you begin to do that, what you're left with is like, okay, a company with an infinite amount of potential. So what do we want to do next? An accountability is a major, major part here. And so I was really reflecting. reflecting on this this morning in a buddy of mine, you know, we were kind of talking about it. And it's like, dude, this entire system, this matrix of reality, if you think about it from the very moment you're born up until now, like the whole system, like at least the upbringing system, it all has accountability, okay? We're born and we have accountability to our parents, okay? Our parents are there to teach us, to guide us. In everything that we do, there's always somebody ahead of us, farther along, teaching us, supporting us, holding accountable. From the time we're children, we have parents who at least try to do that. Of course, they come in all shapes and colors. Some people do, some parents do a good job. Others don't do a very good job, but they're just imperfect teachers, right? They're just, they're doing what they know how to do, right? That the old saying, you can't give away what you don't have, right? But they're holding us accountable. They're holding us, we go to school, we sit down, a teacher teaches us new information, they teach us how to think, they teach us how to behave, they teach us how to live, right? They teach us curriculum, they educate us, and then they hold us accountable to doing homework. And there's consequences if we don't follow through and meet those, you know, components of accountability, right? We fail the test and then there's consequences, right? You get held back at grade, right? You get into sports, right? You have a coach, they're teaching you things and they're holding you accountable for you to perform. You know, you get into high school, you get into college, you get into the workforce, right? Your boss is now holding you accountable, your manager is now holding you accountable. Like human beings, dude, we need accountability. Very, very few people are entirely self-motivated, are entirely just, I'm gonna figure it all out myself. The entire system is designed like to provide this level of here's how you should do it, and here's some support around it, and here's how you should show up, right? Like in a way, the system is designed to like keep you dependent, right? Like if you look at like the educational system, it hasn't changed since the 1800s when the Industrial Revolution was developed, right? And really when they designed the educational system, it was to create factory workers, it was to get people to basically sit in a chair for, you know, to sit down in the factory for eight hours, right? And the system, the school system, it's designed to keep you compliant, right? Respect authority, raise your hand and only speak when you're spoken to, right? The way they teach information, the way they educate in a way that like it strips you of your creativity, it strips you of your critical thinking. Rather than getting you to explore your mind, they box you in and they tell you what you should do, why it's important, and then you have to memorize it and repeat it back to them, right? And like, it's like, man, this, it all kind of ties together, right? Because when we get out of school, when we get out of college, adults just were thrown into the world and to some degree, at that point, like, you're now held responsible to keep yourself accountable. It's like that's part of being an adult. You got to self-manage, right? And if you got all this pain, if you've got all these challenges that you don't know how to problem solve and you don't have support and you don't have accountability and other people who you can rely on and depend on to help you problem solve those things and can support you and motivate you and inspire you every day. Dude, the easy button is just go to the store, get some wine, get it six pack, twelve pack and drink. Numb it out, forget about it. You feel like you're alone. Dude, we can't be going through this process alone. And if you've tried to do this alone and you failed, this is probably a very, very, very large, if not the reason why. Telling you accountability makes a world of difference. And so you have to think about like, you know, when you have a process to follow, when you have a system to follow, when you have accountability, when you have support, like, every day that you figure this thing out and you stay sober and you learn how to mentally and emotionally regulate, you are inching one step closer to the person that you've always imagined yourself to be. If you go back and listen to my last podcast, it's like, dude, we just take this one day at a time and this is a very challenging concept for a lot of people to wrap their mind around. And if you haven't listened to that, I encourage you to go back and listen to it because when you learn to begin to really just zero win on the present moment and learn how to take things one day at a time, dude, your life is going to begin to transform beyond your wildest imagination. But people don't think that way, you know, but learning to live alcohol free teaches you this powerful philosophy and skill that you can only handle what you have in the moment right now with your two hands, with your voice and with your current resources. And the way that we play this game, the way that the game of learning how to live alcohol free and overcome your past addictions is this process of learning how to step into a version of yourself that you know you're capable of being. It's a process of learning how to mentally and emotionally regulate. It's a process of learning how to cope with your internal environment that might seem overwhelming. It's about this process of turning towards the challenges and the discomforts and the pains that you've denied or rejected or haven't developed the courage to look at and turn towards. And through this process and evolution, man, you evolve into a higher version of yourself, right? It's like being a 30 year old versus being a 10 year old. A 30 year old has a significantly more expanded map of reality. Everything is sharper, everything is better, everything is wiser, everything is stronger, right? You can't compare a 10 year old to a 30 year old. And like, you know, you look at day one of sobriety or even day 90 of sobriety and then you look at year one of sobriety of being alcohol free and dude, it's a totally different ball game in who you are and the way that you interface with yourself and the way that you communicate and the way that you show up, your habits, your mindfulness, you know, the way that you regulate. This is a process and a journey and alcohol is the thing that's just getting in the way of you finally becoming that person that you know you're capable of being. And so like, let's do some contrast of analysis here, right? Like, if you're at point A and you want to get to point B, you've got to get clear on what point A is and you have to get clear on what point B looks like and feels like. So if you're at point A and you continue this relationship with alcohol, then think about it. It's like, who do I want to be? Do I want to be person A who's constantly numbing, who's constantly running from himself in his life problems, who is always overwhelmed, who is scared, who procrastinates, who lacks confidence, who feels like they're constantly letting themselves down, who constantly feels like they're letting their partner their kids down or their friends down or their employer down. Like, you have to get honest with yourself and I've got a great podcast episode on it. I encourage you to go listen to it because that's what this game is. This is a process of character building and the character that you build and the person that you become through this path and journey is wilder than you can begin to imagine because it exists in unmanifest potential. Imagine being on the other side having solved all the problems that you're currently going through. Imagine what that would look like. Imagine what that would feel like because that is very real. When you are no longer systematically committing a slow suicide in numbing and running and poisoning yourself, you can do and be anything that you want. Nobody's holding a gun to your head to tell you that you can't go do this or you can't go start this business or get this new job or lose the weight and show up and be more confident. It's all available. You can begin to architect your dreams. It's like, begin to think about who, what point B looks like for you. Like, here's some things that I think about. Somebody who is mentally and emotionally regulated who has a sense of self-awareness and self-control in every moment. Somebody who's present, somebody who's powerful, somebody who's resourceful, somebody who's a good decision maker, somebody who is an accurate thinker, somebody who is a great communicator, somebody who's dependable, somebody who leads and inspires his family, his friends, his children. Leads, by example, is a role model. I know for me, like, that's always been something important to me and a really good friend of mine, an old roommate who's a little bit older. I kind of always looked up to him. He's like, "Ardia, you should aim to be a good role model and that always stuck with me." And it's like, "Yeah, of course, I would love to be a role model. I would love to help others. I would love to inspire others. I would love to be present in a conversation and to just be good energy for somebody, to make somebody smile, to provide them some support, leave them better than the way that I found them." That's what I aim to do. Like, and when you begin to operate in this way from this deep place of just abundance, like, dude, I can't lose. I'm just here to help. I know my intentions. And it's important that you begin to think about that and reflect on that and find that within yourself too, because that's who you truly are. That's your authentic source is you wanna help, you wanna be resourceful, you wanna give, you wanna provide, you want to be a good role model, you wanna feel good about yourself. Like, let's remind ourselves that we maybe have 30, 40, 50 years left. I don't know, it's an undisclosed period of time. Thousands of people wake up, they put their pants on and they don't realize it's gonna be the last day that they have. So it's like, how do you wanna go out? How do you want people to remember you? What do you want them to say about you at your funeral? You know, if you overcome this thing, if you beat this thing, the people around you are gonna be so happy. They're gonna be, the amount of love and admiration that they're gonna have that you overcame one of the biggest challenges in your life and the person that you become along the way, man. It is so priceless. It's so priceless. And the way that we get there, the way that we become person B is we just take it one day at a time, we just take the first step. You don't commit to never drinking again. I know it seems scary, what about the social life, what about vacations, what about how am I gonna do a wedding? What about every Friday and Saturday, whatever? Dude, all those things are so inconsequential and they get figured out. I know in the beginning, I can speak from experience. In the beginning, they seem like they're the most daunting. But it's like, trust me that those are so manageable. That's not where the work comes in. That's not where the evolution and growth comes in. It's part of it. But like, man, you know, the accountability thing, it just, that was what made the difference for me. Because you have to understand that the way that humans primarily grow is through relationships. And let's agree on this. Let's make sure that we see this eye to eye. It's a hundred percent fact. The way that you have grown and have developed from the moment you were born to this very moment you listening to this is based off of your relationships. The base of your personality, the base of your template, the base of your self-image of your perceptual filters came from your parents and your upbringing in your early childhood environment. And then you get into middle school and then you start to slowly but surely become more self-aware and conscious and you start to kind of take on your own identity. But you do it in relationship to the types of friends that you have and the people that you associate with and hang out with. This is how we grow in this human avatar. It's through relationship. It's through communication. So if you hung out with the sports people, that is how you grew. You became more athletic. You became more mindful of your body. You started to work out. You started to exercise. If you hung out and you were naturally maybe drawn to music, you hung out with the people who played music and you ping-ponged back and forth through every conversation, thoughts about music and how to be more creative and how to be more expressive and what instruments and music and whatever. If you did it through people who were in drama in theater, that was how you grew and developed. Those relationships provided the ping-pong back and forth container for your perceptions, for your thoughts, for your education, from the teachers, from the coaches, from the leaders. So who you associate with is everything. It is everything. It is what drives your personal evolution. That's the first layer is your relationship. The second layer may be the programming. It's the matrix that we live in. It's conditioning. It's all the commercials you've been watching. It's the shows. It's the movies. It's the Netflix series. It's the social media. But again, all those are coming from people. You are buying people's perceptions. You are buying people's reality tunnels. Somebody says, oh, you should drink this because it's going to make you more attractive and sexy and whatever. You just bought that person's perception. It's all based off of relationships and who you surround yourself with. And when I was going through this process, and I'd never hired a coach, I used to think coaching was-- I didn't understand it. I didn't understand it because I wasn't there mentally. They say, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. A lot of people aren't even ready for coaching because they're just not even in that stage. Their mindset is just-- it's somewhere else. It's in La Landa. It's floating. They don't have a growth mindset. They're not trying to solve problems. They're not trying to get better. But when I was ready, the teacher appeared. And by God, that system, that process, everything that I went through that year, year and a half, led me to here doing this for you. And I want to do the same thing for you so that you and your life can begin to do this for the people close to you, for your friends, for your family, so that you can go out and create more connection and love and abundance and freedom and all the things that you want for yourself. When I got into that program, and I started rubbing shoulders around people who had solved problems that I did not know how to solve yet in multiple facets of life, like, dude, it's like there's people that are just farther along the journey who have an edge on certain aspects of reality. Why would you not get around them? Why would you not want to be accountable to them? Why would you not want to invest in yourself and get around people who can teach you, who can help you, who can guide you, who can support you? Dude, that is the game of life. It's all about your association. It's all about the network. And, like, dude, when you get around people, who you respect and who you trust, your ability to fulfill on your promises, your ability to step up to the plate and get shit done, it shoots through the roof. Because, like, as human beings, we're tribal. We want to fit into the tribe. And if the tribe, man, is on a rocket ship going up and you're part of it, like, unless you stop, unless you quit, there's no way you can fail. Because as long as you stay part of it, and you continue to stay engaged and receive that support and community and coaching and inspiration and everything else, it's like, it directly mirrors back to you your intention. And if you come in with good intentions and you're excited, and you want to do this thing, and you want to step into that next chapter, like, it's going to mirror that same thing back to you. You know? Like, it's just so important to have that sense of community, that sense of accountability and to lean into it. You know, it makes such a difference. So, when you're accountable, like, here's what you learn, OK? When you're accountable, it forces you to be more mindful of everything. And that's a huge part of this process. Overcoming your addictions, stepping in from person A to becoming that person B. What is for you on this path? A lot of people think, like, oh, life is going to be boring, and I'm going to miss out, and shit's going to suck, and I'm enough to sit on the outside, like, no, dude, it's the opposite. Quitting drinking is a fucking power move. It is a power move. OK? I don't know how much you've read personal development books. If you listen to podcasts, you look at every successful person, not just money. It's all the same. You dig deep into this world. All the philosophies are telling you the same thing. Look at what everybody does and do the opposite. Comes to finances, investing into the stock market. When there's fear, buy, when there's greed, sell, it's the same. It is a power move. It is a biological upgrade into a higher version of yourself. When you learn to overcome the parts of yourself that are just seeking instant gratification, that are seeking instant relief from pain. That process and journey of learning how to work through that is the most profound, beautiful journey that you can embark upon. Because that is why you are here. You are here to grow. You are here to evolve. You are here to fulfill unmanifest potential. And you get to choose what that is. You get to choose. You've always had control. But maybe you forgot. Maybe you forgot. Maybe somebody, your parents, society, they said, no, you got to do this. You got to do that. You got to follow this path. You got to do that. No, dude, you can do whatever it is that you want. And you can begin the process of fulfilling that potential. And overcoming an addiction, quitting drinking, is the path to do that. It's the path. Because when you remove the alcohol, you're left with who and what you are. Now it becomes a journey of figuring out how to optimize this vehicle, this avatar that you've been inhabiting, that you've been not present to, that you've been running from actively numbing. because whatever was inside was too overwhelming. Listen. Even all those things, the anxieties, the depressions, the challenges in your relationship, all these things can be worked through and solved. They're not permanent, but I know when we're going through them, they seem like they are, but they're just not. And when you have support, when you have accountability, when you have coaching, when you have community that you can lean into every single day, when you've got someone you can shoot a text to somebody that you can reach out to, that's how we do it, dude. We get through this thing together, you know? Accountability forces you to be more mindful of your thoughts. If forces you to be more mindful of your communication, forces you to be more mindful of your actions, forces you to be more mindful of how you manage your time, forces you to be more mindful of the type of effort that you put in. Okay? Your level of commitment shoots through the roof because you don't want to have to show up to your coach, to me or to the community, to, "Hey guys, well, I messed up." There's something about it that drives you forward. And the game of learning how to live alcohol free is that process of taking it one day at a time and going one more day, one more day. Eventually, you wake up and it's just effortless and automatic and it's not really one more day anymore. But you always keep that philosophy in mind. But man, what we're talking about is helping you finally break free out of that dopamine feeding cycle and into some level of homeostasis and harmony where you're not drowning and now you're treading water and feel pretty good because you know how to swim. It's all about that, that one more time, that one more time of staying sober when you would have normally drink in. And then you learn from that and that builds confidence and you self-regulate through that moment and you feel so good when you wake up the next day. What accountability does is it teaches you how to value yourself because now who you are is open and transparent and you're doing your best and you're working and you're being mindful of all these things. And then you do it in a community where everybody is not judging you and supportive and understands your struggles. Because the exact struggles of what it's like to have a craving, of what it's like to maybe go out on a Friday night to dinner and see wine on the table and be like, man, should I want one? Everybody in the community and my community gets it, I get it. It's like, dude, the way we understand each other is it is such a bond, you know, we just get it. And people who don't struggle with alcohol, they don't get it. When they haven't been addicted to something, they just don't get it. It's, it's, they can't empathize even if they wanted to because it's different, you know, it's like, you know, it, dude, accountability just, it makes such a difference. It promotes productive behavior. It promotes productive thinking. It promotes resourcefulness over wallowing and being stuck. You need a solution to something, tap into the community. You need support, you need an idea. Hey, what do you guys think about this? Hey, what, you know, it's like a mastermind. You read Think and Grow Rich, the most popular personal development book in the world. And it says one of one of the chapters is like having a mastermind. And the way he explains it is when you get around and when two or more people connect to have the same, who have a common mission and goal, the energy of them synergizes. And it produces something more powerful and profound than what either individuals could have created together. Now imagine you combine that with tens of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people. You create, man, it's, it is profound. The shifts that can begin to occur in everybody's life. It's wild, man. It helps you raise your standards. Accountability helps you raise your standards. And sometimes when we're alone and we don't have accountability and we're often our corner, hiding, we're not operating via any standards. And then we wonder why am I stuck, why am I running into the same problems? It's like, dude, we have to raise our standards. We have to see that it's possible. We have to rub shoulders with other people who are doing it and operating within that frequency. And when we see that other people can do it and it's possible and they're an arms distance away, a text message away, a message away, it makes a difference. Like going back to what I was saying, it was like when I was in that program, man, and I got around guys who were just smashing it, playing at a different level. I was like, fuck, it's like holy shit. And not just money, just the way they showed up, the way they communicated, the way they carried themselves, their confidence, their openness, their humbleness, their vulnerability, their compassion. And yeah, beyond that, they also were smashing it financially, like Jesus, like, and just sit next to them, like numbers that you would normally be like, wow, this is crazy. Normal people, humble, just very mindful of how they live their life, of their energy, of how they communicate, of how they think, of how they problem solve, of how they manage their calendar, of what they do, of what they don't do, of what they invite into their life, of what they don't invite into their life. This is what the process is. This is what the journey is. It is a journey of you developing a greater degree of sovereignty and agency over your human avatar. I know I've been throwing around like avatar and human operating system, but it's like, that's really beginning, how I'm beginning to see this thing is I continue to grow and evolve and like lean more into my personal evolution, like this is an avatar. Bardia is my avatar. I'm a conscious witness to this avatar. I have these thoughts, this voice in my head. I've got this body that produces varying degrees of sensation. I'm clear on my mission, my purpose, what I need to do, what my strengths are, the things that I need to work on. I'm just a witness to this thing. I follow this profound deep level of gut instinct and intuition because it just feels aligned. It feels right. I'm just moving forward and I'm just expressing this energy. I'm channeling it so that I can help other people see and experience and feel what I'm feeling so that you can do that for yourself and then do it for the people around you that you love and care about. Dude, we're just here to raise the vibration of consciousness. An alcohol is the thing that destroys it. It destroys mentally, emotionally, spiritually, energetically, physically. It is a suicidal form of procrastination to your personal evolution. We're not drinking willy nilly for the fun of it. At this point, if we're still drinking and you're listening to this podcast, it's because this thing is destroying you to some degree. It's problematic. It's getting in the way of your mental health, of your energy, of your communication, of your relationships with your partner, with your kids. Dude, this thing, it's an error code. Why are we poisoning the system? You should be on pursuit of discovering the maximum capacity of who you can be in terms of your love, in terms of your presence, in terms of the value that you deliver to the people around you. Alcohol is a distraction. It's nonsense. It's a drug. It's a drug that's going to be a distraction to us in a way that you're going to have fun and you're going to relax. We have all discovered that it is the very opposite. We were lied to. We were duped. It was a trick for them to make billions of dollars to keep people dependent, to keep you coming back like an addict. You're not going to somebody on the street buying crack, some sketchy dealer. You're doing it at the grocery store. You're doing it at the liquor store. Seems more sophisticated and natural that way because it's right next to the whatever else you can buy. Next to the soda. Next to the water. Next to the juice. No big deal. You just buy a little alcohol. Dude, it's a trap. It's what keeps you trapped. Every time you go back to it, it traps you further. Your personal process of learning to recognize this within yourself, getting extremely clear on the pain, saying, "I just don't want this pain anymore." I'm willing to withstand and work through whatever temporary discomfort pops up along the way. Some cravings, some feeling like I'm missing out, some not drinking at my first wedding that I go to, some not drinking on my first vacation. I'm willing to move through that temporary bout of discomfort that pops up 30 minutes to an hour at a time because that's about how long cravings last. Hour and a half at the absolute most, hour and a half so that I never have to go back to that cycle. And as a result, of learning how to work through these discomforts while at the same time simultaneously. transform my mind, body, spirit, and energy system and everything else, expanding my consciousness, becoming a higher caliber human being in the way that I manage and regulate. I'm also now free to have all my time back, all my energy back, all my mental clarity back, to begin pursuing the things that I really care about, that I love, the things that are meaningful to me. Whether it's your career, whether it's your husband or wife or your partner or your kids, so you can be present for them, or your employees or your business, or your shareholders, or whatever it might be. Like, we need to get clear on who we can be. You need to get clear on who you could be. What does that look like? How do they show up? What's the typical day in the life? How do they feel? What do they do? How do they provide value? How do they feel? Do they feel good? Do they feel happy? Do they feel confident? Do they feel present? Do they feel connected? It might be hard to imagine those things when you're deep in it, but you have to. If you're at point A and you want to get to point B, you've got to know, you've got to start architecting what point B could look like for you, what it could feel like. If you're in California and you're trying to get to New York, but you don't know what New York looks like, the buildings, and the statues, and the cars, and the bridge. If you don't know that, and you just start driving east, where are you going? When do you stop? When do you take a break? You have to be clear on that. I encourage you to begin thinking about that because whatever comes to mind there is possible for you. It's possible. When you escape the cycle of addiction, when you begin doing things every single day, you take a proactive approach to your life. You're accountable to an amazing group of people. You have a coach who can support you, who can help you problem solve. Whatever it is you want is possible. It's all available to you. It's just a matter of time. You just take it one day at a time. You don't have to do all these things overnight. It's not going to happen overnight. It might take a few months. It might take a year. It might take a couple years. A couple years out of 100 years that you have to live, whatever that number is, undefined, undisclosed. You take one to two years and just go all in on yourself. You look at anybody who has, you ask me, that has created any "measurable degree of success." Kobe Bryant, famous athletes, actors, they're winning the award. The award is not that great. The award is fine. It's great. It's a representation. It's a symbol. But what do you do? You reflect back on the journey. All these things that I'm doing now, having a podcast, helping all you guys, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. But you can hear it in my voice. It's not like this stuff is amazing and I love it and I'm so grateful for it. But it's like what really hits me deep in my soul in my heart is who I was. And this journey and everything that I went through and every day and every challenge that I overcame and every day that I continue to maintain my resolve and my commitment. It's like the good days and the bad days. That's what's sweet, reflecting on that. Everything else, those are symbols. Those are cool. Appreciate it. Yeah, great. We got that. And that's what it is for you as well. And so to some degree, we have to like, you know, hindsight is always 2020. But we have to maintain a growth mindset and realize that in every problem, in every challenge, there is a silver lining. And there's something to pull from it. Something that my clients tell me all the time is like, you know, I just, I'm so grateful for this program. It was perfect timing. You know, had that shitty thing not happen to me, you know, whatever challenge rock bottom that they were kind of in. Like, and I found your podcast. I wouldn't have hit. Had I heard this three months ago or six months ago. And then is ready. The teacher will appear. And like, man, if there's anything that I trust, it's divine timing. It's divine timing. I wouldn't have been ready to be the stop drinking coach at 21 or 25. It all happened perfectly every relationship that went well, that didn't go well. Every job that I had that led me into a business that led me into this that led me into that every fork in the road. It was all perfect timing, perfect, perfect, perfect timing. And I trust that. And I believe that. And to some degree, I like, I encourage you to begin reflecting on that within your life. If you go hindsight is 2020 on all your experiences, could you see how all of your inputs produce the current output? And had you maybe had different relationships or hung out with different people or made different moves that it would have led you down a completely different path? For sure, hindsight is always 2020. And we need to begin to recognize that. Like, the accountability thing makes a difference. Leaning in having community, having support, being able to rub shoulders with people who are on the same frequency, who have a common goal. And on top of that, you know, you have a leader and somebody who was like committed to pushing that train forward. That's the process. That's the evolutionary process. If you look at every other capacity of life, we do it. Or it's been there. And like, man, the alcohol thing, man, it, it's so important. Because when you're struggling, you can lean into the community for support. When you don't know how to problem solve something, you can ask other people how they did it. And you'll get 10 different responses or however many. It's like, great, everybody's got something to teach everybody. But having that thing that you know that you need to show up to, it's like, it makes a difference, man, the study show 95%. And I know I wouldn't have been able to do this thing had I not had that community and support in my early stage. And, man, it's a symbiotic relationship. Each and every one of my clients, you guys, you guys help me and support me just as much as I help and I support you. It's an energy exchange. It's an exchange of energy. You know, this expression, this sound coming out of me, this is my energy that I'm giving to you. And if it resonates, if it harmonizes, if you're like, yeah, I haven't heard it that way. I haven't thought about it this way. Like, that's a signal. That's a signal. Because there's an infinite amount of people out there. There's a thousand different sobriety people. There's thousand, you know, videos and like, you have to find like, this is what this whole human experience is about as you develop your senses is you begin to follow that gut instinct, that intuition, that alignment. That's what I've done and it's led me here. And as a result, I've been able to help tens of thousands of people because inside the entire time, I've just been trying to pay attention and stay curious around what's this thing inside me that like this pocket that I'm trying to find this flow. And now that I've found it and I've discovered it, I'm just doing everything that I can to channel it all out in every possible way to help you. And so if you feel that, like, act on that, act on that because those things are rare. Think about how many people you come into contact with, how many forms of media that you listen to or you're exposed to that just goes one year out the other. If you find a tether in energetic tether to something, that means it's part of this deal. It's part of the process. It's part of the growth process. It's part of your life. I don't know if the sole contracting is real or whatever. But think about like every person you've been in relationship, man, woman or otherwise. It's like you date a bunch of people and it's like, yeah, okay, that's fine. Like whatever, they're cool. I like these qualities. But there's no tether. There's no energetic attraction. There's no magnet. But the person that you end up dating for a long time, whether you marry him or you a long term relationship, there's that there's you can feel that energy. It's different. There's a magnet. There's a poll and you don't really know why, but it's there. And then that relationship ends up being a container for a tremendous amount of growth and evolution. I feel like we need to follow those points of energetic alignment. That's what I've always done. I'm not encouraging you to do anything here. I'm just this like if I'm coaching you right now and I'm providing you like wisdom across this human experience, it's to follow that gut instinct, follow that intuition. Maybe it's not me. Maybe it's somebody else. But find that. Find the people who you admire, who you respect, who you resonate with and get closer to them. That's the game changer because the way that we grow is through containers of relationships. You know, when I look at my mentor and when he got sober, he's like, "Dude, he was going to AA meetings and he found this guy. I'm not going to name names, but he's like, "Dude, that's what kept me sober. I met this guy and we talked all the time and he helped me problem solve things and he reminded me things that I needed to be reminded of and I had accountability to him and that's how he did it. You just, you got to find your home, you got to find your community, you got to find your person, you got to find your people because we don't do this thing alone, dude. It's too complex. There's a way too much to solve. You need accountability. This stuff is heavy. You know, cravings are intense, emotions are intense. We need people to do this with. And so I encourage you to really reflect on the value of accountability. The value of accountability and reflect on the value of what your life could be when you solve this thing in every capacity with your health. What could your health look like and feel like with your relationships? What could your relationships look like and feel like? How much love and connection could you have? How much harmony and homeostasis and stability in your family unit? Could you redevelop? Imagine the future of all these different things. Your life, your kids life, your partners life. Think about what you could do in terms of your productivity, your earning potential, your earning capacity. If you had all your nights back, if you had all your weekends back, imagine what you could do in terms of so many things. Dude, it's all possible after that. After you begin to rid yourself of the toxic poison that is keeping you down and numb in a fraction of who you could be, and you start to reconnect to your authentic self as you begin to become more self-aware and more mindful and you begin to heal and you begin to learn how to regulate and have better control over this avatar that you that you inhabit. What is not possible? You begin to develop more confidence, more self-esteem, more self-worth. Your communication gets better. You acquire more skills. What is not available? It's all available. That's why this journey is so profound, man. It's so profound. Remember, quitting drinking is a power move. This is not like, oh, man, feels like that. Feels a little sad. You're breaking up with the toxic ex, for sure. But it's all mindset. It's all perspective. You got to look at who you are, who you know who you are deep down. You know who you're capable of being. If only. And that's the key thing. If only, if only you got over those fears, if only you work through those anxieties, if only you fucking forgave the people who you're still holding onto and the anger, you know who you could be. If you were no longer afraid of unleashing the truth inside of you. Telling you, man, telling you, that's what we're here to do. And alcohol is getting in the way of that. So lean into accountability. Accountability makes all the difference. Look for it. Maybe it's with me. Maybe it's with the stop drinking coach community. I would love to support you and guide you. If you feel like I'm the right person to support you and guide you, go to my website, www.thestopdrinkingcoach.com and fill out an application, scroll down to the bottom. I've got, I don't know, 30, 40 screenshots there of testimonials of people who have come through my program and their experience. I just take them straight from the community channel. They're not curated. They're just, this is what people say. I take a screenshot and I add it to the website. And so, yeah, share this, share this episode with somebody who you know might be struggling because maybe they have tried to do this thing several times on their own and they don't really think about accountability. They don't really think about the value of accountability and how by leaning into a system, other people having support, how it could be the thing that they need to really get them to figure things out this time. So, I hope this episode was helpful for you. I appreciate you listening. And if you haven't yet, I would really appreciate if you left a five star review on Spotify and on Apple. And, uh, and yeah, 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.thisstopdrinkingcoach.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.