I've been duped by alcohol | Paul Churchill | TEDxBozeman

[Music] I feel like I've been duped I recall in high school the motivational speakers will come to my school and say don't do drugs don't you crack don't you heroin don't you cocaine and don't do meth I'd say to myself okay I heard you loud and clear I won't do drugs but absent from those talks was any reference to alcohol from what I saw on TV in the movies as far as I was 21 everything was gonna be just fine I started drinking in college and I loved it I had a great time I started to drink more and more and I became enchanted with it after majoring in business in Spanish I had a brilliant idea to move to Granada Spain and buy a bar looking back it was clear I had a drinking problem at the time it would ensued over the following three years can be summarized with three words total show now my drinking became so bad in Spain I was blacking out five to seven nights per week twenty to twenty five drinks a night that was the norm one night I ended up in the emergency room I was thinking I was having a heart attack but it ended up being alcohol induced withdrawal symptoms and a severe anxiety attack I said to myself what in the hell is going on I'm a smart guy why can't I beat this well my drinking only increased so I did a smart thing I walked away from the bar in Spain hoping a geographical change what cure my drinking but it didn't taper off in fact it escalated at a time when it seemed my friends were phasing out of their heavy drinking days I was ramping up again to wonder what is going on so I decided to do some research and I went to dr. Google now with the help of dr. Google I found an episode on the Freakonomics podcast where the doctor david nutt who was hired by the british government to place a harm score on 20 of the world's most addictive drugs and his findings surprised me he found that magic mushrooms do the least amount of harm to those who take them and others and guess what landed at number one it wasn't meth wasn't crack it was a local cane or heroin it was alcohol dude I'm not like I've been totally and completely duped by alcohol and why hadn't I known it could be so dangerous well it turns out that alcohol is quite addictive but what I didn't hear from those speakers and motivational speakers in elementary school and middle school high school was that alcohol kills more people each year than every other drug combined nearly 33% of all traffic fatalities involve alcohol around 11,000 in this country alone 85,000 Americans over 3 million people worldwide will die this year two alcohol-related causes so at age 28 I decided to quit permanently but I couldn't due to the addictive properties of alcohol I could drag down in a vicious cycle of addiction again I get a week a month a year I want to be dragged down in the addiction again but finally after a decade of being sick and tired of being sick and tired and a failed suicide attempt or that damn stigma on September 7th I got sober now let me tell you why this is my most crowning achievement in life 5% of people will make it to 90 days of those only 5% will make it to 2 years that's 2.5 people out of a thousand will make it to 2 years of sobriety after to make the decision to quit drinking so with 2 months of sobriety I went to an AAA meeting I was ducking and dodging behind trees Thank You stigma and two things came to mind number one I knew I was gonna drink again if I didn't do something different number two there are so many people struggling why are we so secretive about her drinking so I selfishly started recovery elevator podcast to create accountability for myself I didn't care who listened if it was just me my brother my mom and my dad then great as long as I stayed sober if I helped a couple other people along the way that's a huge bonus however what happened next blew my mind the podcast has been downloaded over 1 million times in all 50 states and over 140 countries now I'd like to think it's because I'm a highly skilled interviewer or that my topics are incredibly insightful but I know it's because there's so many people out there struggling with alcohol and what I've learned after having 120 interviewees on the podcast is that alcoholism is not an indication of weak morals are the one lacks the muscle of willpower and it does not discriminate I've interviewed doctors lawyers engineers even a CEO of a fortune 500 company now in 1956 the American Medical Association classified alcoholism addiction as a disease in 2016 Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recognized addiction as a chronic disease of the brain worthy of compassion just like any other chronic disease like diabetes or heart disease why we're still having the date if alcoholism addiction is a disease or not it is a mystery to me but I do know that it has something to do with the stigma and it's this stigma that forces us to reach our most severe moments in pain before reaching out for help and oftentimes it's too late me publicly coming out is someone with a drinking problem has been the best thing that I've ever done for myself I created accountability I found a way to help myself by helping others and as a result I'm approaching three years of sobriety this coming September thank you thank you very much that means a lot now with so many people struggling and the odds not in our favor how do we beat this how do you return to a life of happiness will must be clear there we are facing two mighty adversaries number one a dangerous and addictive drug called alcohol and number two the stigma surrounding addiction what I have learned from after hundreds of conversations with those who have been successful in sobriety it's through community is the best way to face this issue now regarding the stigma it's time to shred the shame this is a disease just like cancer now imagine if someone were to notice a mole on the back of their arm I was rapidly changing size color and shape they'd get it checked out pretty quick now with alcoholism the opposite happens we try to keep it a secret place unrealistic rules and strategies into place now what's the silence and anonymity that perpetuates the stigma surrounding addiction so I encourage you if you're struggling with alcohol or you know someone who is we don't be so secretive about it I reach out before it's too late because it's easy and understandable for one to be duped by alcohol when people rarely talk about it thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 546,028

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Community, Drugs, Struggle

Id: xiK7ONxHErY

Length: 8min 20sec (500 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2017