E02 - Why I quit drinking

[Music] [Music] now why did I quit drinking just kidding this is for the fish and plus I'm more of a whiskey person I'm totally kidding this is for the guests and actually was given to us by a famous politician today I want to talk about why I quit drinking and I also want to say thank you so much for those of you who watched and really encouraged me to continue on with this channel okay I need to give you a little background on my relationship with alcohol and it started when I was 12 I had my first drink a friend and I stole boxed wine out of the refrigerator and spun around and laughed hysterically and we were like oh my god this is amazing we loved it then by age 15 my parents divorced which was a total shock so now I'm drinking twice a week with my friends and now twice a week with my dad and there's no stigma attached and it's just this sort of unspoken yeah this is what you do the drinking with my dad was not as much fun as with my friends because it turned into a big rant almost every time and a rant against my mom and anyone else I partied through college you know attended lots of happy hours it was just you know the the drinking just kept going and I did notice over time that I was drinking a little more and I was drinking more often but I also noticed this little voice that was saying hey do you think you're drinking too much is that possible I mean I certainly thought my dad was and you know at this point like in my early 20s I lost my relationship with him because the drinking was so dysfunctional and so it was easy for me to say he had the problem but I also knew you know hey I'm drinking too and that's not good another thing that happened with the small voice is in my early 20s two friends and I coworkers we decided hates new years let's have a fresh start and so we decided to pick one thing each and give it up for 30 days and then we all three gave up all three things so I chose alcohol one friend chose chocolate and the other one chose cheese all three of these were very difficult for all three of us so it was a good thing that we worked together because we could cheer each other on and we count down the days together and then at the end we had this huge party and tons of cheese chocolate and alcohol it was fun and our whole families and friends other people knew that we were doing this and we turn it into fast friends and then we did this every year for 10 years and it evolved into an opportunity to reflect on now what is this relationship with alcohol that I have and why is this difficult and how do I feel and so that was where I really started to gain momentum into this just my future really because I was like hey my dad died at 57 we were estranged like that was devastating and my stepdad died at 53 you know and he was ready to retire in a few years so I was getting the message that life is short my DNA this is how it looks you know if you keep it up and this wasn't gonna end well and so I wanted something more from my life and I tried to negotiate with it I tried rules and I'll just drink you know I'll be a normal drinker I couldn't do it I liked it too much the chemical reaction in my DNA and my cells said I need more and I couldn't change that so by quitting which I did the day after my my 34th birthday was so empowering because I just said enough and there were a couple of people sober people in my life at that time who really got me to that decision and one was my mother-in-law who was for 12 years and I could talk to her about any of this and another was a co-worker of mine who just really embodied everything that I admired in a person and she was four year sober and she just let me pick her brain and she just said hey listen there's one word and I hope it's meaningful to you everything you're experiencing with alcohol if you're like me its progressive and it's the hangovers are gonna get worse the fights with your husband the the unhappiness with yourself the desire to drink more you know the the difficulty to quit all I could think about was my dad it's like the relationship with his daughter wasn't enough for him to not drink and that was so it was sobering for me like I want to learn from him I don't want to have to experience a rock bottom like that and I want to get something more out of life then he was able to then my stepdad and you know I just had to make the decision and and free up all this real estate in my brain for life and just living and enjoying and not suffering at my own hand so that's why I quit I also want to share a voice for being able to learn from other experiences and not having to suffer if you don't have to that's what I'm for like don't don't do it like there's a whole other life and in the next episode I want to share with you why it's so great why I think it's so great and how why has been so great for me to not drink so thanks so much for joining and I'll see you [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Megan O'Kelly

Views: 34,376

Rating: 4.9477124 out of 5

Keywords: sober, sobriety, clarity, quit drinking, sailing

Id: rX5xIpfi7XU

Length: 7min 4sec (424 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 12 2019