Why Giving Up Alcohol Could Change Your Life: Andy Ramage | Bitesize

in that 90 days i lost free stone in weight you know my body fat went from 35 down to below 10 you know i got my time back here's the thing people don't even think about time time's a modern day disease in the sense that we don't have any take a break from alcohol you unlock tons of time [Music] let's rewind back a few years i don't know what it was now when you started that journey of re-examining your relationship yeah for me it was very clear it was in my mid 30s i'd sort of reached that conventional place where happiness apparently resides you know i had the car and the big job and the lovely family and all those type of trappings and i remember reaching this place thinking i feel a bit no a bit average i think like many people like a five out of ten i was overweight stressed out maxed out unfit unhealthy and as part of that process i decided to leave my job as a broker to start a new firm because i was convinced there has to be more to life than this you know when i looked around the rest of the city i saw people that were quote unquote more successful than me broken bodies broken minds broken homes and i was like i don't aspire to that what's the point i want to do something different i want to come back i want to build a foundation of wellness and vitality and from there peak performance so i had nine months off which was fantastic gardening leave i traveled the world i trained for the best of the best co-founder of nlp rich roll sarah campbell the world champion free diver just to learn everything i could about wellness and vitality and when i came back to start this new business you know i was going to meditate and i was going to eat salad and stuff you know i was in that type of mindset but i was totally inconsistent i was inconsistent in the way that i exercised i was inconsistent in the way that i showed up in the office this inconsistency was everywhere and finally the penny dropped i thought it's alcohol was there a particular moment i mean you've mentioned when the penny dropped but i don't know you know banker culture from what i know some of my friends from university who have gone down that road and just from seeing what i've seen um alcohol socializing fuels a lot of that industry from what i can tell oh absolutely and but what's interesting since i've got into this it's not just banking or broken that i was in or trading it's media you know it's in all these different it's in insurance it's in very lots of it's quite ubiquitous how widespread the use of alcohol is to entertain and socialize and all those things and as you said it's the elephant in the room it's the one thing that no one ever really questions they question their diet and they question their meditation they question the way they move their body and they sort of forget to actually look at this thing underneath which is alcohol that's tripping people up so for me there wasn't ever a big sort of never again moment it was just a slow realization of i think this is holding me back i was suspecting that alcohol was preventing me being my best self it was preventing me getting from that five out of a 10 in terms of happiness and wellness to a seven or an eight and sort of spoiler alert it absolutely was yeah so why should someone who's listening to this podcast why should they start to question their relationship with alcohol do you think i think everyone should just take a break just run that experiment because you might not know how much it's holding you back until you remove it because i think it's things like consistency it takes away that consistency even if you're only drinking once or twice a week and just to set my stall out i am talking to the middle lane drinkers i class myself as a middle lane drinker and what i mean by that is someone that drinks moderately sometimes averagely sometimes heavily which is basically everyone you know that is the group that i'm talking to because i think for too long there's been this black and white message around alcohol it's either you have a full-blown problem or you don't there's no in-between i think it needs to be this gradient where we think about alcohol as a whole spectrum and everyone who drinks is on that gradient at one end it's the very moderate drinker once a month the other end is the problematic drinker and most people spend all of their time oscillating somewhere in the middle don't they i think they're average sometimes moderate sometimes heavy that's the group of people i'm talking to if someone had told you six years ago hey andy look um you're drinking too much right um you're going to in six years time have not touched a drop of alcohol for six years you you probably would have laughed in their face like what are you talking about right absolutely i mean so the goal for you was never to stop drinking and i think that's very powerful so you never planned to completely stop drinking and i'm not saying you have completely stopped obviously for six years you've not had one i don't know how you would um talk about yourself and your relationship with alcohol now and i think that's what you're offering people isn't it you're offering people it's not about giving up necessarily it's it's almost as if you're trying to say hey look let's give it a go why don't you see how you feel when you don't drink and is that all you're asking people to do exactly that's it in a nutshell i choose not to drink because why would i but prior to that i stopped and started many times i slipped up and stumbled and fumbled and just you know the co-founder of one you know beer rury fairbains he drinks every now and again in full control on his own terms so i'm all about people drinking if they wish to but what i really want everyone to do is to run the test run the test and see the results that you get and if you feel amazing keep going i talk about people doing a split test on themselves or an a and b test effectively a you with alcohol right now gather your stats you know bmi weight resting heart rate all those wonderful physiological stats and then the subjective stats productivity time motivation stress your relationships run the test for 28 days that's all you've got to do i prefer 90 days because i think you get better results and when you think about it 90 days a 90-day break from alcohol over the average drinking career is about 0.49 everyone's got 0.49 just to run the test and if you get the results and you have this visceral experience of these improvements and you've got more time you've got more motivation you've got more productivity you've lost weight and all these wonderful things then the answers in the data the answers in the visceral experience and then my job's done all i've got to do is help people start keep them going for long enough to have their own experience then their relationships transformed my own story in that 90 days i lost free stone in weight you know my body fat went from 35 down to below 10 you know i got my time back here's the thing people don't even think about time time's a modern day disease in the sense that we don't have any take a break from alcohol you unlock tons of time you realized how much time you were wasting for me mornings were never an option right there was no time in the morning it just could not exist i took a break from alcohol suddenly i got up half an hour earlier became two hours earlier you can transform your world in two hours a day you know in that space i got fit got healthy wrote two books this is all whilst i was working went back to university twice before the kids had even got up for breakfast what about someone who's listening to this and goes andy look i get it i get that this is work for you but i am shy i can't talk to people i feel really nervous when i'm out in a bar or at a work meeting and actually having a couple of glasses of wine loosens me up so that i can have those conversations is this approach still for me andy what would you say to them oh absolutely and i think where things have changed hugely in the last five or six years since i started is the advent of alcohol-free alternatives they're everywhere now there's been a huge shift in that heineken zero zero for example is unbelievably well stocked siebel seedlit first world's non-alcoholic gin these alternatives are there and there's real placebo in that and when i first stopped i used that placebo all the time so if i was out socially i would feel exactly like that person you described i'd find it very difficult to socialize without those one or two drinks so i had to retrain myself but i did that whilst holding on to something that looked like alcohol that tasted like alcohol that stopped very a lot of the social pressure because people assumed i was just drinking and that was enough for me to buy me the space to retrain myself to be social without alcohol and then you're unstoppable because you can do all those things that you always wanted to do without having to rely on this crutch that's actually holding you back i wonder if you reflect on the last six years what has been your biggest learning biggest learning is that consistency is king i think it's not about being perfect it's about showing up enough time in a row and doing the right things it's really simple i think you can achieve your dreams if you show up enough times whether that's to get the body that you want or the relationships the connection the vibrancy it's just about showing up it's not about being perfect it's about showing up our journeys are probably slightly different so i think the reason i have stopped drinking by and large i mean i will have a drink now and again is because as i've found more meaning and purpose in my life from my job um and listen to the podcast we'll have heard some of the story before but since my father died who i used to care for i've been on a real journey to discover who i am and as i've discovered who i am as i've started to do things in my daily life that really give me meaning and pleasure and purpose i found that i no longer need to drink anymore because actually the alcohol was often there to numb i think something you've said there's really poignant i think the greatest discovery you'll ever make is your authentic self yeah and i think that's shining through and i think alcohol masks that it puts on this a front whether you're numbing or if you're trying to be someone that you're not and when you remove it you get this chance to be you again you get this chance to turn up and be social or relax or relieve boredom as you and experience life as you and if there's things underneath that need to be dealt with because that's very often the case with people especially on the extreme end who use alcohol you get this chance to bring back your vitality bring back your energy and also deal with anything that's underlying but ultimately become you again your authentic self that is so powerful that is the greatest discovery you'll ever make and i think that leads to more meaning and purpose and vitality in one's life and i think that's the experience that you've just had and i've had in many ways and for many people the first step just like for you is going to be reset your relationship with alcohol right absolutely and i think medium and purpose comes from momentum in your life just head in a direction whether that's to take a break from alcohol whether that's to transform your diet or listen to this podcast or read books there's momentum and where there's momentum i think you grow meaning and purpose and as i mentioned culturally i think we've been lured into this false sense of belief that we can just sort of from a standing start figure out what our meaning and purpose should be and if you can't then you're a bit broken and you're a bit unlucky but it's not true just create momentum in your life health vibrancy connection and you will never know how it might just blossom it might just appear along that journey and then you end up being like me and you and we're writing books and doing podcasts and i'm talking to people about giving up or taking a break from alcohol who would have thought that in a billion years i could never have brainstormed that i got a pen out and gone hey you know what my meaning and purpose going to be it just happened from momentum in a direction of wellness and positivity and i think that will take you where you need to go yeah it happened as a default as a result of you living your best life yeah you didn't need it to live your best life you started living your best life and then as a result you start to find the meaning and purpose perfect which is just beautiful it is and even if you look at the world of positive psychology there's a great guy called sean acker and he has lots of research about success for example and he's actually saying look people don't get happy and vibrant when they're successful that's the traditional model actually if you really look at the science people who are happy and vibrant become successful that's the way around it is and it's the same with our wellness it's the same with meaning i think we find it when we are imbued with wellness and vitality and positivity and then we stumble upon it when we feel better you live more you've built up a wealth of experience so i wonder if you could share some of your best tips for my audience start today right now make a commitment just do it i think that's the number one thing as obvious as that sounds and again i think to understand that failure is part of the process this is so key as soon as you step outside your comfort zone whatever it is you're trying to do you're gonna stumble you're gonna fumble you're gonna get things wrong learn from it dust yourself off come back stronger understand that motivation changes and be prepared to change with it the motivation to start is very often very different to the motivation you need to keep going and ultimately try to become someone that is doing the things that you want to do whether that's someone that doesn't drink or someone that eats in a certain way or someone that moves their body um ultimately i think it is just to accept that just by showing up as my last point is consistency is king whatever it is you're trying to do just trying to show up enough times in a row and you will achieve your dreams take it from me really hope you enjoyed that conversation please do think about one thing that you can take and apply into your life inspiration is not enough you need to take action if you did enjoy that please do press subscribe hit that notification bell and why not check out this conversation that i picked out that acts as the perfect follow-up

Channel: Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Views: 193,347

Keywords: alcohol, not drinking, how to stop drinking, get healthy, how to quit dinking, tips, advice, how to, stop drinking, self improvement, health, wellbeing, give up drinking

Id: Uvya5FrRu5E

Length: 13min 48sec (828 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021