Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

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About the Host

Daniel Stih is an aerospace engineer, software engineer, indoor environmental consultant, and author of 12 books. Through engineering, environmental investigations, and interdisciplinary research, he explores how people define problems, interpret evidence, and make decisions under uncertainty. Learn more in Why I Think This Way.

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Show Notes

Sober in Seven
https://soberinseven.com/about-the-course

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Transcript

My guest today is Andy Smith.

Andy is a sober coach.

He helps people to stop drinking.

Andy grew up in a pub on a tiny island in the Shetland Islands, and as a young man, being able to hold your drink was a rite of passage into manhood.

If you weren't able to hold down a half bottle of whiskey and remain standing, you were in some way inferior.

That led to a lifetime of overindulgence, costing him a small fortune, relationships, and a marriage.

He found himself in a state where his health was so poor, he had to use a stick due to gout in his knees and ankles.

He had high blood pressure, cholesterol was pre-diabetic in terms of blood sugar and being prescribed antidepressants for anxiety.

He tried Willpower, AA, hypnotherapy, counseling, and seeing a doctor to no avail.

Then there was a moment that changed everything for him.

And since then, he's helped thousands around the world control their drinking and create happier and healthier lives.

Andy is going to share with us today how he did it and what you can do if you might feel it could be beneficial to your health and your relationships to cut down on your drinking.

Disclaimer here, addiction is a multifaceted situation with physical, emotional, and habit components.

And this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice.

If you're concerned about a medical condition you think you might have, please see your doctor.

Welcome to my show, Andy.

Oh, hey, it's so good to be here.

Thank you so much for having me on.

And yeah, as I'm listening to the introduction there, I'm thinking, wow, yeah, you know, it's been quite the journey.

And I'm looking forward to sharing some bits of that with you.

But, you know, I sometimes need to kind of remind myself, given that where I've got to now, just how bad it actually did get and the kind of the origin story about some of those kind of influences in my early life and just how those things kind of play out over time is absolutely fascinating.

Yeah.

Tell me the story about growing up in a pub and having to hold your own and then how you transitioned out of that.

I, by the way, cannot hold my own.

You guys will be picking me up off the floor someday once.

Tell me about your story.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, it's even interesting, isn't it?

That kind of, we almost feel like you got to kind of justify.

It's kind of, oh, yeah, you know, you guys, you know, hard drinkers and all this kind of stuff.

And I mean, if you go back to when I was kind of, you know, seven, eight years old, we moved up to Shetland, which is where my family is originally from.

We were, I was born in the north of England.

But the Shetland Islands, for those people who are maybe heard of it, but we're not quite sure where it is.

It's the northernmost part of the UK.

So it's kind of, as you head off towards Iceland, basically, it's probably slightly closer to Norway than it is Scotland itself.

And I grew up on a small island of the sort of the hundred that are in the Shetland Islands group.

And we bought a big old, fairly derelict house and turned it into a guest house and a bar because there was no bar on the island.

You got to have your bar, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

And yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we created a bar on the island.

And I guess, you know, when you look back on it now, our very livelihood, you know, the fact that we could put food on the table was dependent on people consuming alcohol in our house, you know, and it's just interesting.

It was a family business.

It was a family business, absolutely.

And so it was, yeah, there had never been a kind of a place that you could go to drink socially.

And so it was reasonably successful, but you know, you're on a tiny island with 300 people.

So it's, it's always going to be kind of, and it's what you do for a living or for your livelihood.

So yeah, yeah, I see.

So then did the business break up or did you leave the business, leave the family?

How'd you get out of it?

So we got out of it after about 10 years.

We built it up to be pretty successful, but it's, you know, running a bar and a guest house in a small, very rural location is pretty much a 24-7 gig.

And it took a big toll on my folks.

And we were all involved.

I have lots of happy memories of cleaning the beer taps on a Sunday morning with my father and listening to the radio and kind of being involved in it all.

But it was just kind of interesting.

There's a big, I mean, there's quite a big drinking culture in Scotland anyway.

But in Shetland, it was very much kind of encouraged.

And as I was growing up, as a young man, kind of, I suppose, finding my way in the world, as it were, you were kind of judged by how you could handle your drink.

And yeah, I love it when you say hold your drink, as they would say up there, you need to be able to hold your drink, son, you know?

And I remember one time when I was probably eight or nine years old, sitting in somebody's house, because again, there wasn't a lot to do, so you tended to make your own entertainment, and it was, I think it was New Year, and sitting in somebody's house, I was probably eight or nine years old.

And there was a chap who grew up on the same island I did, and he was, when I was eight or nine, he was probably about maybe 20, 21.

And I can remember somebody describing him to me as this young boy, and said, see Brian, he can drink a whole case of Tennant's Lager, which is sort of 24 pints of fairly-

They were proud of him.

And yeah, and I felt like I'd met Batman.

It's like, he can drink this and still stand up.

Speaking of that, Andy, what can people do?

In America, it's a huge-

Well, maybe not as big as Scotland and the Irish for sure.

They've got us beat on that.

Drinking, still in America, especially if you're young, it's the thing to do if you're in college.

Yeah.

Drink the beer.

What do you tell people?

What advice you give them to help with the social pressure if they don't want to drink?

It can be a really big factor because quite often when people have been drinking a lot for a long period of time, you've kind of oriented your life around drinkers.

So there is going to be social pressure.

There are plenty of people out there who don't drink huge amounts of alcohol, but they're probably not on your radar.

And I think the key thing on this journey is to do what is right for you.

You will find people who are supportive, happy, you know, proud of you, but you will also find some people who are enormously threatened by what you're trying to do.

They're generally the people that actually...

Let's pretend, okay, you're the...

I'm sorry to make you the guy who still drinks, but I'm going to pretend I'm the guy who doesn't, because this is what I used to do.

When people are like, do you want a beer, Daniel?

And I would just say, I've got water, or I've got a Diet Coke, or Coke, and I leave it at that.

You want a beer, Daniel?

You need a beer?

Nope, I'm good, I've got water, I've got a Diet Coke.

That's what I would do.

Yeah, and I think sometimes it's how you...

If you're not certain, if you're setting out on this journey, you're not sure how you feel about what's coming or where you're going.

So it's quite easy to get derailed.

And I think a lot of this is, you tend to get things like, oh, are you gonna be the boring one now?

Or does that mean that we can't drink if you're here?

Because again, a lot of people have this image in their mind of somebody with a drink problem.

It's a guy sleeping on a park bench, you know, with something in a paper bag and stuff like that.

And if there's one thing I've learned over the years, I've been doing this and helping thousands of different people, is there is no kind of one kind of, I guess, kind of avatar for somebody with a drink problem.

You know, it can be a busy working mom.

It can be a business owner who is stressed out all the time and feels like they've got the weight of the world on their shoulders and they're trying to support their family and all this kind of stuff.

And a lot of these people tend to get to this place where it's kind of like, I just need some downtime at the end of the day.

And alcohol is just kind of portrayed as this sort of, you know, fix all kind of thing.

What do you, what advice to give to people who say, I want to cut down.

So there's two types of people we could talk about.

The one that you go to AAR, or you take your, they take your program because they want to stop.

They know they need to stop.

Yeah.

But then there's the other type like me.

I might buy a bottle of wine.

It might stay in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks before I open it.

Yeah.

But we want to cut down.

So what do you tell those in between people like, you know, I'm not alcohol, but I should cut down.

Okay.

And, you know, I would say try it, you know, just have a think about, you know, set yourself some goals.

And I think probably first and foremost is make an agreement with yourself as to why you want to do it.

You know, what do you feel you would have to gain by doing this?

Because actually, I think one of the biggest myths of this whole journey is, is this whole kind of focus on stopping drinking.

And addiction lies in the subconscious mind.

And the subconscious mind is really interesting.

It's enormously powerful.

Probably 94 to 98 percent of your results in anything in your life come from your subconscious mind, not your conscious mind.

But there are certain ways to manage your subconscious.

And one of the things, for example, is the subconscious does not do very well with negatives.

So if you say, I must stop drinking, what happens is the subconscious mind doesn't actually recognize it.

Stop.

You can't get a picture for stop drinking because you have to.

Exactly.

What does it mean?

And, you know, I sometimes talk about my dog.

We've got a rescue dog from Cyprus and she's lovely.

But if I want her to sit, I need to tell her to sit and then I'll give her a little treat and she'll do it again.

If I say to her, don't stand up, she will look at me very confused and think, okay, I want to do my bit for you.

I want to do what you ask.

I have no idea what you're asking me.

And then, you know, if I repeat and things like that, she may get stressed because she's thinking, okay, I think I'm in trouble now, but I still don't know what you want me to do.

So I think, you know, for anybody, whether you're contemplating stopping or whether you're contemplating cutting down, focus on what you have to gain, you know, if you go, right, okay, well, actually, I'm spending too much money on this stuff.

Okay, what would you spend the money on instead?

Do you want to pay your credit card off?

Do you want to put your kids through college?

Do you want to, you know, buy a present for your partner or whatever?

But make it mean something because at some point on this journey, whether you're stopping drinking or whether you're cutting down, at some point, you're going to get tested.

You're going to get that kind of like, oh, I kind of want to drink.

And do I indulge that or do I not?

And so you end up with this kind of choice.

Option A, have a drink.

Option B, don't have a drink.

And it's kind of that simple.

But the thing is, is that if Option A is to drink and then Option B is no more compelling to you than don't do Option A, then the chances are Option A is going to win.

Whereas if you've made a kind of, if you've kind of put a bit of work in to go, I know what I have to gain by this.

If I'm getting some health issues with it or something like that, what is that going to mean?

What would I do if my health was better?

And when you start to do that, the subconscious can engage with that and start to play its part.

And to kind of, sometimes people say to me, oh, what was the kind of the moment?

What kind of did it for you?

And there was a really interesting kind of chain of events for me.

I'd had a wallop and panic attack in my local supermarket and I'd collapsed and literally fallen into one of the display fridges.

And I was literally helped up by this little old lady who was asking me if I was okay.

And I'm like, well, I'm, yeah, I just slipped and all this kind of stuff.

And my heart was hammering out my chest and my skin felt like it was on fire.

And I can remember, I mean, this is nearly eight years ago.

And I can remember it like it was yesterday.

And just that sense of utter despair of, you know, how have you let it come to this?

And, you know, I used to kid myself that I was drinking to relax.

And yet here I am having a panic attack.

And in spite of being on antidepressant medication and all this kind of stuff.

And it's like, well, yeah, how's the drinking to relaxing going, Andy?

But quite soon after that, there was just a really interesting set of circumstances.

And the subconscious functions emotionally.

There's very little kind of rational about this.

And I was sitting at a railway, there was a railway crossing and I was in my car, the barriers came down and I was sitting there and I was running late.

And I was kind of stewing at the fact that I was getting held up by this train that was coming.

And the Michael Jackson song, The Man in the Mirror came on.

And now I'd heard that song hundreds and hundreds of times before.

But on this morning, when I was kind of contemplating, it was quite soon after I'd had the panic attack.

Just, you know, what are you going to do about this?

Because you're not going to get to see.

I've got a young son.

I've got two older kids, but I thought I'm not going to get to see him grow up if I carry on like this.

You know, I'm really killing myself here.

And the chorus of that song came on and it's, I'm starting with the man in the mirror and I'm asking him to change his ways.

And that sentence just all of a sudden, while I was sitting in my car, looking at myself in the rear view mirror, it just had such profound meaning for me of that one word, asking.

You know, I'd spent probably 10 years beating myself up about this, waking up every morning, hating myself.

And it's like, oh, today's gonna be different.

You know, I'm not gonna drink today and then I'll feel better tomorrow and then it wouldn't happen.

And that stuff crushes your self-esteem over time.

What was the question in the Michael Jackson song again?

Ask yourself what you can do.

I'm starting with the man in the mirror and I'm asking him to change his ways.

And it was just that whole thing, you know, and I was looking at my reflection in the rearview mirror and I thought, you know what?

It's there is the problem and the solution staring at me.

You know, this is an inside job here.

There's, I can argue about any external influences, but this is my issue and my issue alone to address.

So how did you address it?

What does one do to get to change their ways to not drink so much?

So, so the key question here was asking, because rather than kind of trying to tell myself this narrative, that what I was doing was wrong, I started to kind of pose questions.

What if I wasn't drinking the way I was?

How would my life be better?

You know, how would my career be better?

How would my relationship with my partner?

You know, my, I was scaring my family with what I was doing.

And when you start to ask those sorts of questions, the subconscious starts to kind of play along.

If you say to yourself, well, I can't do this, then your subconscious goes, okay, fine, I believe you.

And it doesn't play its part.

Whereas if you start to pose questions, then your subconscious starts to kind of pose, you know, kind of avenues to perhaps explore.

It can be a battle.

It can be a battle, but at least you're still fighting it.

And I would argue that that is the start of the battle, rather than the kind of just, you know, instant defeat at every time.

And so I called my boss up and I said, look, I'm going to take a couple of days off.

I said, I was not feeling well.

And I worked in the pharmaceutical industry.

I've run dental companies and veterinary companies.

And I was really good at what I did.

And I'd won awards for kind of selling and influencing and coaching and all this kind of stuff.

And I just thought, how can this guy that gets recognized in this way for changing how other people feel about things, be such an absolute shambles on the inside?

And I guess the asking thing was, well, what if I treated myself like a client?

You know, what would I do if somebody came to me and said, I want to feel differently about this, what would the process be?

And I literally dug out all my old course notes and from all the selling coaching calls, I've done professional qualifications in things like CBT and neuro-linguistic programming and all this kind of stuff to make you a better salesman.

And so I grabbed it all out, I put it in the car and I went and I sat down, there's a little lake near where I live, and I dawned to dusk for three days.

I just sat there and I went, right, okay, I think the answers are in this car somewhere.

I just need to find them.

And over those three days, I kind of wrote myself out what ended up being a seven stage process.

Obviously hence, Sober in Seven is the name of my story and name of my book and course.

But I just got really clear on, okay, well, I would start with it.

So I agree, hypnotherapy rarely works.

NLP is neuro-linguistic programming, for those not familiar with it.

It's kind of like hypnotherapy, but it works with your limited beliefs, your beliefs, and like you said, Andy, what you want to do instead.

But you mentioned that didn't actually work.

So what's your first step in the seventh step?

So the first step was exactly what we've been talking about is kind of what is in it for me.

So I kind of, I systemize this around the word freedom and the F in freedom also stands for focus.

It's like, what is your focus?

And the key thing for me was when I started to shift my focus to what I had to gain rather than, just being obsessed about the problem.

And I'd been to AA meetings and things like that.

And it really didn't resonate with me because I saw everybody just talking about the problem all the time and admitting the problem and reinforcing the problem.

As long as we're on that, because I wanted to ask you about AA.

Yeah.

I've always been open-minded because on one hand, I respect people going there.

And I believe that it helps.

On the other hand, it starts with, I am an alcoholic.

Talk about hypnotherapy.

How is that supposed to flip things around?

Unless these people are basically, even if they never drink, they're going to be permanently stuck in between, not drinking, but I am an alcoholic.

They're missing the part you put in your program, Andy, how to, what do I want instead?

It sounds like.

Yeah, I think you've pretty much summed up my feelings on it.

There are some people become very attached to the whole AA doctrine.

And sometimes I get into debates with people and sometimes people will say to me, ah, well, the fact that you've got over this means that you weren't a quote unquote, proper alcoholic.

No, you got them on that, man.

I've got, you got your backstory.

Nobody can.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know, it's kind of I didn't, I didn't think it was going to be a competition, but I did sit and drink a litre of gin and a bottle of wine one night.

I don't know if that qualifies me as being an alcoholic in your mind.

But I think, you know, I just when I was sitting there and there was some lovely people there, but it was, it was, I found it quite dispiriting and there was quite a lot of inauthenticity as well.

And integrity is quite important to me.

And, you know, there's somebody saying, oh, it's been 122 days since my last drink.

And I'm sat next to them and I'm thinking, you smell of vodka this morning.

You know, you've been drinking.

And I just thought, I'm not sure where this is going.

And they're still stuck on that number of not drinking.

Like you mentioned your dog, you know, don't stand up.

Yeah, exactly.

No, okay, what are we doing instead?

Like what did I do in those 122 days, like you did Andy, in 2018, you rode into Paris on your bike, having ridden an entire tour de France.

Yeah.

What did you do in the missing time, right?

Yeah, but this is the whole thing.

You know, the thing I love about what I do, and bearing in mind, when I was looking at my own life and things, I hadn't got no ambitions around helping other people or anything like that.

I just basically, I think I had two objectives when I quit drinking.

Number one was not die, and the other one was not get thrown out of the house.

And, you know, if I did have succeeded in those two objectives, I'd have been very happy.

But I think what you learn as you start to kind of understand how you sort of manage yourself on these kind of things, it starts to open up different questions.

And that's what I felt really sad about and still do when I speak to somebody from AA and they're kind of, you know, they sometimes can be quite nasty and say, look, you know, oh, you've only, you know, you've only been sober for seven and a half years.

I've, you know, I've been sober.

I've not had a drink for 25 years.

And I say, yeah, okay, great.

You know, do you still go to meetings?

Yes, I go to five meetings a week.

And I'm like, wow, 25 years.

They're substituting their new lifestyle is to, is to make, beat that number, like make it 123, which gets back to they're really stuck and they're not being happy in life.

They're just, it's just keeping them from drinking, but it's really not making them happy.

I think, I think that it's, it's probably unhelpful sometimes to general.

I do, I kind of concur as a kind of general rule.

I think if you get obsessed with counting days, for example, you know, what's the difference between 187 and 188 days?

You know, I mean, really, does that help you move forward in your life?

For me, it's around, you know, what does, what does it mean?

You know, if you set yourself, we tend to be quite goal oriented.

So if it's like, look, I'm going to take a break for a hundred days and, you know, I'm going to make sure I do that.

Then you've got something to kind of shoot for.

And, you know, maybe, maybe you won't succeed.

You know, maybe you'll fail at kind of day 50.

And then that's, you know, an interesting bit of learning.

It's kind of like, okay, I said I was going to do this and then I didn't.

Well, that's interesting, isn't it?

And what might that tell me on this journey rather than just counting sort of numbers for the sake of it?

I mean, alcohol addiction is a learned behavior.

You know, you repeatedly do something.

I mean, I often jokingly say, you know, I drank from when I was 13 years old quite regularly to when I was 50.

And, you know, it's probably the one thing in my life that I was completely consistent at.

You know, diets came and went, fitness plans came and went, jobs came and went.

But drinking was always there.

And if you're that consistent with something, you learn to become dependent on it.

You learn to make it part of the very furniture of your life.

You build your social circle around it.

You know, it's like, well, we go to the pub because that's how we work.

And things like that.

There are other things you can do.

So what was the first step again?

So focus.

Focus.

You know, focus on what you have to gain.

To gain.

Okay.

Perfect.

So is it step two?

Cause I don't want, you know, you've got your program.

I'm not going to ask you to go through all the steps on this.

Sure.

Well, let me give you kind of a bit of a journey of it.

So R and E in freedom stand for reasons.

And E, the first E stands for exaggerations.

So we're dealing with the rational mind in this kind of stuff where we start to have a look at the facts of the situation because a lot of the facts that we kind of see portrayed in the media are not actually true.

You know, there's new data, for example, on alcohol and cancer, which is deeply worrying.

And it doesn't really tend to get reported.

And then, but what does get reported is, you know, there was a thing on the front page of the newspapers, I think maybe just over a year ago, and it said quitting drinking gives you Alzheimer's.

I mean, it's insane what gets latched on to kind of sell papers.

It's insane that they allow that stuff to be, they will scrutinize who the writer is like, I probably couldn't get accepted because I'm an aerospace engineer, not a doctor.

How is it that they even can print this stuff like it's a fact?

Because they take one tiny little bit of data and take it out of context and things like that.

So that kind of phase of it, we need to understand what's going on with the different kind of, we know a lot about the different neurotransmitters in the brain, things like dopamine, serotonin, and how addictive substances work and how they create the dependence.

Because actually, you're not addicted to alcohol, you're addicted to the dopamine that it creates.

One of the really uncomfortable facts on this kind of journey is, the more dopamine you indulge in, whether it's pornography, alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, or whatever, dopamine down regulates serotonin receptors.

Now, dopamine is pleasure, and serotonin is happiness.

And so basically by sort of indulging the pleasure side of things, you then ruin the happiness side of things.

And if you think about that, it kind of makes sense, because if alcohol made you happy, then the people who are addicted to it would be the happiest people on the planet.

And I'm here as testament to say that the reverse is true.

And certainly with everybody else, that people who drink heavily are generally miserable, because it creates all sorts of trouble.

But in their brain, it inhibits your ability to feel happiness.

And then after that, we move on to endurance and definition, which are a couple of things where we start to get more into the emotional mind and the mindfulness.

How do you manipulate?

How do you reprogram your subconscious mind?

Well, you do it through things like neuro-linguistic programming, through visualizations, through reframing some of the, as you said, your self-limiting beliefs, starting to kind of choose to view those differently and from a different angle.

And then we start to move into opportunity and momentum are the kind of the final two.

But, you know, so this is a rational, but primarily an emotional journey where...

In the first one, the focus, and I forgot the rest of it.

Say it again, the first step is what?

So we got focus and then reasons, then exaggerations, endurance, definition, opportunity, and momentum.

Focus included figuring out what you wanted to do.

Instead of not, don't stand, it's sit.

How do you help people figure out what they want to do?

Because that's a theme on my channel, if you read between the lines.

I'm trying to encourage people, I think the biggest solution to making a happier world for everyone is do something positive, the thing in your heart, your higher calling.

Is that part of your step one?

Oh, absolutely.

But I think it kind of permeates this whole journey, because I agree, it's so important.

The number of people that I speak to, I say, okay, well, let's work on your happiness.

What makes you happy?

Then there's kind of silence on the end of the phone and they're like, I don't know.

I don't know what makes me happy.

It feels like a long time since.

So that's where coaching can really help.

You start to kind of tease out things.

Oh, what do you like to do when you're a kid?

Tell me about your happiest memory.

And then you start to kind of perhaps pick, help people kind of join the dots, because they feel so disconnected from their happiness.

And you can start to go, actually, you know what?

I used to really enjoy running.

And it's kind of like, okay, when did you last go running?

Oh, I've not run for 15 years.

Okay, well, they do these park runs in the UK, or there's Couch to 5K and all this kind of stuff.

That, you know, things that you can do, and you can start to perhaps, you know, just gently get yourself back into that.

I've got one lady who is in one of my social media groups.

And, you know, we started out in quite a dark place.

And she then said, oh, I rediscovered my childhood love of crochet.

And she now has a business selling crochet stuff on, I think, on Etsy and actually has a website now.

That's nice.

Good job.

And then she said, I got a message from her out of the blue and she said, Andy, you're not going to believe this.

I've just been approached by my local college to be their crochet instructor on their arts and crafts course.

And we just had a real laugh about it.

And we just said, who could have predicted that when we started out on this journey about stopping drinking?

And now she has her own business.

She does something that she really loves.

And, you know, so I think it's a little bit like the subconscious mind gets very closed down.

And when you start to open your mind, when you start to ask yourself to change your ways, it starts to just gently open up like a flower.

And it starts to, you know, you see coincidences, you see things that you would have previously just walked right by and you go, oh, that looks like that would be something worth doing.

And you kind of have to start to just make a deal with yourself to follow your nose a little bit on this stuff, just because it feels good.

You know, the Tour de France thing for me was, if you were to rationalize that, how somebody who is overweight, didn't even own a bike, go and ride all 21 stages of the Tour de France around, over the Alps and the Pyrenees and all this kind of stuff.

You know, on paper, it makes no sense to do something like that whatsoever.

But it was just something, I used to watch the race every year and I thought, oh, wouldn't it be amazing to go and do something like that?

Why do you say on paper it didn't make any sense?

Why did you say that?

Because there are far more reasons not to do it than there are to do it.

See, I'm still not getting it because to me, the idea you need to know why you want to do something is what gets people stuck.

I'm like, if that's what you want to do, then do it.

So, exactly, but this is my point.

It's kind of, for the rational mind, for the conscious mind, there would be like, well, can you afford to take three weeks off?

We had a young son, you know, it's like, are you really going to leave your partner to kind of solo parent while you go off and indulge yourself around, you know, the mountains of France and things like that?

There are lots of reasons not to do it.

This is perfect, because I would bring it back to, honey, if you want me to stop drinking, I feel I need to do this.

Well, so she actually played that the other way around, so it was quite interesting.

When I was sitting doing a Google search, ride the course of the Tour de France, again, it just felt like something I would want to do.

By this point, I was starting to get a bit more confident in my sobriety, and I'd made a deal that I was like, right, I'm not going back, because everything is just better in my life without this booze in it.

And you start to ask yourself different questions.

What else have I talked to myself?

What else have I gotten myself out of that perhaps I maybe could have done?

And the Tour de France was one of them.

And I just started Googling, and I called up this charity that I ended up riding for, and I said, oh, is this right?

This is what you do?

You organize this ride for the whole Tour de France.

And the lovely lady on the end of the phone said, yeah, that's exactly right.

And I said, oh, well, how do I get to be a part of it?

And she said, well, I've got bad news for you.

I'm afraid it's completely sold out for next year.

And I was like, ah, okay.

Oh, well, nevermind then.

And she said, but I can put you on the wait list because people drop out, life gets in the way and things like that.

And I was like, okay, fine, fair enough.

And I started doing a little bit of training just because I was trying to get myself kind of back fit again.

And then about six weeks later, the phone rang and it was them.

And they said, right, okay, somebody's pulled out.

You're next on the list.

We need an answer in two hours, or we'll move on to somebody else because we've got to fill this place.

And I went and spoke to Louise, my partner, and she asked me the killer question.

There was a few kind of, I guess, qualifying questions around if you were to do it, would you put the training in?

I was like, yeah, absolutely.

But then she said, if you say no, are you going to regret it for the rest of your life?

And I was like, absolutely, 100 percent.

And she said, well, there you go.

And I was like, yeah, but we've got all this stuff that we'll need to kind of work out.

And she said, fine, we'll just work it out.

Oh, I see what you mean by was flipped.

It was you who was questioning the rationale.

Yeah, absolutely.

And my God, if I didn't love that woman before, I certainly loved her then, because there was somebody who genuinely put my needs and my aspirations first.

And I thought, God, what an amazing thing to do.

And she shared in me getting back into shape again and feeling better about myself.

And I used to scare her with what I was doing in terms of she was thinking, well, he's not going to be around for seeing his young son grow up.

Do you think that stops a lot of people, maybe who you work with or people in life, when they have this thing they want to do?

But they're questioning themselves.

It's not somebody else that's stopping them.

They themselves are the one that are doubting, should I do this?

Can I do this?

Absolutely.

And I think the lesson from that kind of experience is, can you find ways to kind of make a sort of a micro commitment to this stuff that will actually help you further down the line?

So I could have said, no, don't put me on the waiting list.

But I said, yes.

So I kept that door open.

And then when it was, then I was kind of forced to make a decision, yes or no.

I couldn't procrastinate on it anymore.

It was kind of like, yeah, there you go.

And so it kind of made me, it saved me from my own procrastination, I guess is what I'm saying.

And the consequences of saying no, is that question from Louise Proofed, would have been pretty devastating.

But then that's when the hard work started.

And there's, I love the Jim Carrey movie, Yes Man.

I don't know if you've seen it, but it's a funny film, but actually I think it's got quite an important message in it, that if you start to say yes to things and stop, and obviously he has a reason why he cannot, he certainly feels that he cannot say no to things.

He has to just agree to stuff, but it takes him on the most wonderful adventure.

It gets him into a fair bit of trouble as well.

But, you know, and it's actually based on a true story about a guy who lived his life on the roll of a dice for a year and wrote a book about it.

But this, you know, if you can find ways to kind of make a small decision on something like this, well, I'm just going to do one thing.

I mean, I'm now a spin instructor at my local gym, which is kind of just seems crazy considering kind of where I've where I've kind of come from health wise.

But it's really interesting, that class at 6.45 on a Friday morning is always completely sold out.

And people show up at quarter seven, they get on their bikes, they do 45 minutes of brutally hard exercise because I work them really hard.

And everybody walks out there feeling like they're 10 feet tall.

And I did an interesting thing a few weeks ago where I asked them, how many of you, because I talk a lot about commitment versus motivation, and a lot of people think, I need motivation.

And it's like, no, you don't.

You need to make a commitment.

You know, motivation comes and goes.

Even if you're an Olympic athlete, you do not feel motivated all of the time, but you've got a plan, you make a commitment to it, and you get on with it.

And I did a show of hands.

There's 30 people in the spin studio.

And I just said, out of interest, who bounced out of bed this morning, kind of going, yes, we've got spin class.

And wanted to be here, we're motivated to come here.

How many of you?

There was one hand went up out of 30.

That's like doing your sit ups and going to the gym.

It's not exciting, but you do it.

Because you think that the body you're gonna have in your strength if you do it, and if you don't do it, yeah.

Yeah, and I just said, isn't that interesting?

29 of you didn't necessarily feel like coming here, and yet you're here.

What does that actually say about you?

And I was watching, there's a TV program with Wim Hof.

I don't know if you've come across Wim Hof, the guy who does all the cold water stuff and things like that.

I was asking somebody how that worked, and they said it's the dopamine.

Because I was like, how else can you get it?

If I don't like cold water, how else could I get it?

But he does a really interesting thing.

He did a TV show with some celebrities, and the first thing that he made them do was, they were in the Italian Alps, they cut a hole in a frozen lake, so you're out there on the ice, and you can see this pitch black water that is freezing over.

They've got a rope on them, but they're all going to have to jump in.

But he did a really interesting thing, and I think not many people would have noticed what he did.

But he got them to within about 20 feet of the hole.

He stood between them in the hole, and he looked them in the eye, and he said, right, I need you to decide now.

Are you going to do this?

And so they couldn't even see the hole.

They knew the hole was there, of course, but because they weren't stood in front of the hole, he's just like, right, okay, how are you feeling?

Right, let's get in the zone.

Right, let's make the decision.

And he waited until they went, okay, yeah, I'm going to do it.

And then he stepped out of the way, and then they approached the hole.

So that, and I thought that's just really interesting because when you're there about the jump, you've already made the decision once that you're going to do it.

So you're in with a much better chance of actually doing that.

And they were still kind of like, oh, I don't want to do it and all this kind of stuff.

But they'd already said yes once.

The way I put it is if you expect some bumps on your journey, when you come to the bumps, you're more likely to get over them because you're expecting it's not going to be easy.

So Andy, let me ask you, this sounds really helpful in how to motivate people, if that's the right word.

Find the thing you want to do, Tour de France, jumping in the cold water.

What about families and friends?

Because not being an alcoholic, I'm fascinated by this idea of intervention.

Like, it's almost like, it's quite interesting.

I'm like, the idea of an invention.

So your family and friends are worried about you.

Is there a way that you could recommend that family and friends worried about someone who has a drinking problem, could get them to, instead of going to AA and going nom, nom, rabbit hole, go, you know what, you always like to ride bikes.

What if you did that and then you could stop your drinking?

Is there, is, is, am I making sense with that?

You absolutely are.

And I think, you know, I do speak to a lot of people who, you know, will say, it's not about me, it's about my husband or my wife or my brother or whatever.

And, and it's really hard, you know, because if somebody does not feel like it's a problem, certainly outwardly, it's very hard to get somebody to kind of buy in to that.

However, I would say there are some do's and don'ts.

On the don'ts, and this is hard, because if you're family, you're emotionally involved, you know, you are, you know, you are reaping the wild wind on all of this stuff that either is happening or isn't happening and things like that.

So it's very hard to be dispassionate about it.

But to criticize somebody for this is generally not that helpful.

The reason being, and what I think, what a lot of people don't understand is, even though an addict may not admit outwardly that it's a problem, they hate it.

You know, the feeling that I used to have waking up in the morning, it was horrific.

And I used to be very defensive about my drinking, because I was beating myself up so much, I couldn't bear the thought of anybody else joining in.

So I just, I had to reject that out of hand.

It was like, it's not a problem.

Stop it.

You know, I'm handling, I'll deal with it.

Even though I didn't know what to do.

And so the key thing is, you need to hold them to account.

And I think Louise, my partner, was amazing at this, because she would say, she would frame it like, I'm just really worried that you're not going to be around.

And she would also say, actually, you drunk asleep on the sofa of an evening is not a lot of fun.

That's not really what I signed up for.

And that made me feel terrible, make no mistake.

So you could say, well, hang on a minute.

She was criticizing, but she was just being honest.

And because she wasn't doing it in a naggy way, it didn't let me off the hook, and it kept me looking for solutions.

And so I think if there's somebody listening to this, and you've got a husband, wife, whoever, that you're thinking, how do I help them?

Just sit with them and kind of maybe ask that question, how can I help you?

And ask you, how do you feel about this?

And try not to judge, because that that addict, it's so hard to admit to yourself that you've got an issue.

You hate it all day, every day.

But to actually go, I have got a problem, and I need to do something about it is a massive step.

And you've got to plant some seeds.

And that may even take some time to.

During your, since you've done all the NLP and hypnotherapy, are you familiar with Louise Hayes' book, You Can Heal Your Life?

So that was a big part of my recovery from divorce.

I kind of between getting divorced and getting sober, I got that book and it really helped me.

My, going into what was quite an ugly story, there was lots of stuff that I felt incredibly kind of angry and it was not fair what happened to me.

And in that book or that DVD as it was, that I got, you know.

So, the reason I ask Andy is because for a, in this book for listeners who don't know it, it's the classic 80s book that came out, the first new age book to explain the mind-body connection.

And in it, there are, when we're talking about hypnotherapy and limiting beliefs, the problem you're having and the new beliefs.

So, the reason I ask Andy is because I'm fascinated with the idea because I'm not an alcoholic or an addict that the limiting belief is what's the use.

It's a feeling like things are futile and you're inadequate.

And it's also associated with shame and grief.

And the new thought pattern is I live in the now.

Each moment's new.

I choose to see myself.

I love and approve of myself like you said, Andy, look in the mirror.

But what's your comments on that, the shame and the grief and the futile stuff in terms of turning stuff around?

And because it sounds like you're familiar with that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And when you look at the different emotions that we can experience, if you've done anything with kinesiology and things like that, you will see how certain emotions strengthen you, empower you, and certain emotions are really toxic, and they will weaken you and disempower you.

And guilt and shame are right at the bottom of the list.

And so, you can prove this.

I mean, sometimes my party trick is you'll go and do kinesiology, get people to hold their arm out and see whether they're test strong and things like that, and you get them to focus on something they feel guilt or shame about, and they have no strength whatsoever.

And actually, this is quite a big cornerstone of addiction that you've touched on here, because you are repeatedly indulging in an activity that brings a huge amount of guilt and shame with it.

And so you're living in that just all the time, apart from when you're drinking.

Yeah, it obliterates that for a little moment.

So you get this artificial lift in your emotional vibration.

You know, so at the bottom of the pile, you've got guilt and shame.

At the top of the pile, you've got love, joy, acceptance, authenticity.

And so you obliterate guilt and shame for a short period of time.

So you get this lift, artificial, but you get it and it's very, very temporary.

And then the following morning, bang, back down you go.

And it's crushing.

And so you seek solace from that again.

So the following night, drink, drink, drink.

Oh, great.

I don't feel the shame and the guilt to the same extent anymore.

Back up, I go only to come crashing down again.

The, the following day, the journey out of addiction is you get that lift anyway, but it's sustainable.

And, and it's, it's, it's more, you know, it's, it's more.

How do you get over the shame though?

Because, no, but number one, you're not doing an activity every single day that makes you feel terrible about yourself.

Um, but a lot of what, um, uh, what I do with people in, in the longer term is about just understanding that, you know, part of it is being able to let this go and understanding that, as you say, in the moment, it's kind of like, and this is where, you know, the kind of like, hello, I'm an alcoholic.

The shame is from something that happened in the past when you're a kid or whatever.

Sometimes.

And you can't really change that.

Sounds like I'm in AA now.

So let that go.

That's what that was my question.

Like the shame and the grief sounds, well, how, what have I, what was I shamed of?

How do I need to know?

It sounds like I don't even need to know.

I need to let go of it, get on my bike and go, you know, I'm bigger and better than this.

So I do work with people who, there is a very specific reason why they're doing what they're doing, you know, grief, abuse, trauma.

I would say the vast majority of people are confused.

They're like, I don't understand.

So I went to talk to somebody and they're kind of like, right, well, you do this because you've got some childhood trauma or whatever.

I'm adopted, I'm a child of the 60s.

I spent a year and a half in therapy with this guy trying to convince me of the fact that I'm adopted is like this terrible thing.

And I'm like, well, hang on a minute.

I've always felt pretty good about it because my adopted parents always were very open and clear with me.

They always said, you know, you can go and find your natural parents if you want.

We'll support you.

And, you know, I always felt fairly special because they said we had to work really, really hard to get you.

You know, you weren't this kind of accident or something like that.

It was, you know, and and so.

But this guy was kind of like, oh, no, no, no.

This is, you know, this is why you're drinking.

I was like, OK.

And I played along for a year and a half.

And and, you know, I used to finish those sessions at nine p.m.

on a Monday night and go home via the off license and go and buy myself a couple of bottles of wine because it was exhausting.

It was traumatic.

And after a while, I just called time on it and I just said, Look, I'm sorry, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree here.

And and, you know, but for some people, that is absolutely true.

But I would say a lot of people, the guilt and shame is from what they're doing.

You know, a lot of people will say to me, I have a good life.

I just seem to be hell bent on breaking it because of my drinking.

And and so you're piling this guilt and shame on.

So whether there is a kind of a more deep-seated thing that you're going to want to get some kind of therapy and get some help with in the longer term, what you're doing with the drinking to kind of try and obliterate is you're pouring all this extra guilt and shame on top of it as well.

So at least if you can remove that, you're in a position where you can start to deal with the other stuff, if there is other underlying things there.

From a position of kind of healing and being in the now and go, right, okay, there's stuff that may have happened to me in the past, and it's not my fault.

It's just because of the situation I was in and I now choose to move on from it.

And sometimes with people who are dealing with very, very difficult stuff from their childhood and things like that, sometimes the drinking can almost be like a trial run almost of, can I do this thing and take control of my feelings and my emotions on this one thing?

And actually what I learn on that journey, I may be able to then kind of transpose to start to kind of enable myself to maybe release some of this other stuff.

I mean, I used to have suicidal thoughts when I was drinking, and I don't have those anymore.

My mental health is still kind of all over the place a bit, but it's just a different league compared.

How are the suicide thoughts related to the drinking?

Just because you got into such a depressed state because of the alcohol?

Yeah, I mean, you're consuming an addictive depressant every day.

It's no wonder you feel depressed.

And actually, just that whole kind of general lifting of your kind of emotional energy.

But also as well, remember, you've got when you, pardon me, when you drink a big quantity of depressant, your body cannot let that stand.

Because if your body did nothing about that, it would literally just stop your heart.

So what it has to do is it has to push back with the opposite.

You know, it's like Newton's law of motion.

To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If you force a depression on your body, your body will push back with the opposite, which is stimulation and anxiety.

Hence why I was drinking myself into oblivion every night.

I was on antidepressant medication, and yet I still had a panic attack in my local supermarket.

So what happens is you force a depression on your body, let's say in the evening, and then the alcohol leeches out of your system overnight.

Your body is creating all this anxiety to cope.

As the alcohol leeches out, your net level of anxiety goes up.

Then it gets joined by a craving, which also manifests itself as mild anxiety, because all addictive substances create cravings.

And so you get towards the end of the day, and all the good intentions in the morning and things like that, they've all gone because it's like, oh, I've had such a stressful day.

I can relate with other things in terms of the ups and downs.

So to break the cycle, what's a tip to ward off the temptation when you're trying to break it and you get tempted, kind of like eating food?

Or how do you not replace it with something else, like eating food or smoking or something, another bad habit?

Yeah.

So dopamine is a very real thing.

You will seek it out wherever you can get it.

So sugar can be a real big issue for a lot of people on this.

So, you know, when I speak to people and they're like, look, you know, I've done really well.

I've, you know, not had any alcohol for four weeks, but my goodness, you know, I'm going through a tub of Ben and Jerry's, you know, every two nights or whatever.

Yeah.

You know, been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

And it's like, look, just go with it.

You know, if it's helping you for now, keep off the booze, just go with it.

Okay.

We'll come back to that.

Remember that things like fruit also have a lot of sugar in them.

So your body's creating, there's a lot of different metabolic processes going on.

Your body will crave sugar for a variety of different reasons.

And it's, it's, it's a little simplistic.

For me, it's coffee.

I drink like 10 cups a day and people are like, you know, too much caffeine is bad for you.

I'm like, I'm not smoking.

It's not alcohol.

What's...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, but you are addicted to it.

You know, just try and stop, you know, and it's kind of like, it is, you know, our mobile phones, you know, if you want to understand what addiction feels like for somebody, just take your phone away and just put it away for three days and just remember every time you think about it, that's what addiction feels like.

It's, you're just obsessed with it.

You know, on phones, this is tangent a little bit, but maybe not, because it could be how you feel when you stop drinking.

When my phone was broken so I couldn't send text, just text, I could still get a call.

No text for a month.

It was such a wonderful time.

I wasn't constantly looking and texting, constantly looking and texting.

I almost wanted to stay broken, so it was out of my life.

And that is kind of what, again, what a lot of people don't understand is, being addicted to something is exhausting.

You know, I used to be driving home from where it's at, right, okay, what's in the house?

Do I need to go?

Will I get, you know, if I've been working late, will I be able to get to the supermarket before it closes to go and get a bottle of wine or whatever?

And you're thinking about it all the time.

And probably the biggest thing for me, and I guess, you know, as we're talking about the kind of the AA sort of, you know, slightly obsessive, even many years down the road, I think just to be free of it and just to go, oh, I'm so glad I don't have to worry about that stuff anymore, because addiction is, it's hard work.

And, you know, yeah, getting past it is hard work, but it's like, I can't remember the book, but it's choose your hard, you know, and it's like going down the gym.

Yeah, it's hard to go and lift weights and things like that.

But, you know, suffering with back pain and, you know, different things because you're completely out of condition, that's also hard.

So it's kind of, there's no such thing as a sort of a free lunch.

You've got to put effort in and energy.

And I've been talking a lot to people about goal setting and things like that because it's that time of year when we set New Year's resolutions and things like that.

And when you understand how the subconscious mind works, it's making decisions all the time, it's putting energy towards those decisions.

And that happens whether you are aware of it or not.

So again, going back to, I must stop drinking, you're putting energy to the problem or you're putting energy to, I'm going to run the Boston Marathon next.

Yeah, exactly, like I wouldn't be able to, like I'd like to be able to go home today to train to run the marathon, but I can't because I'm a little drunk and I could get run over because I fall over.

Got to quit.

So Andy, what's one question people don't ask you that they should when it comes to quitting alcohol?

The one thing they don't ask you, but you look like something that's not common sense, maybe because all the misinformation about alcoholism and quitting.

I think we've covered everything.

It just comes to mind.

Is there something we're leaving out?

I think there's a lot of stuff around actually quitting.

People can go to their doctor and then get told, oh, whatever you do, don't quit cold turkey because you'll have a seizure and you'll die.

When you get that from somebody in a white coat, it will, boom, it's right in there in the subconscious.

What that tends to do is it makes people, then your subconscious flips that around and says, okay, well, in order to remain alive, I need to keep drinking.

I think the key thing is make a plan.

We tend to view this, I think, to make maybe more fully answer your question, is you need to look at this not as a black and white thing.

It's like drink or not drink.

It's kind of like, I have learned to get addicted to something.

Am I willing to embark on another journey of learning to get beyond it?

And there may be relapses in that journey.

There may be lessons that are deeply uncomfortable for me that I will go for two months and then I'll get complacent and I'll think I'm cured and I'll think that alcohol is no longer addictive and I can handle it.

And then I go on a three day bender because I had one glass of wine.

You know, it's kind of, it's kind of inspiring though.

It's inspiring.

Like if I was an alcoholic trying to quit, it would be easier for me if I think about Andy because he won the prize for being able to drink a whole bottle of whiskey.

Just to start with.

And yet he wrote the Tour de France and I'll be thinking, you know, I want to run a marathon.

I want to ride my bike.

Andy did it.

It's OK.

He could do it.

I could do it.

Something like that.

But that's that's why I do this stuff.

You know, I want people to understand, because there is also a narrative out there that kind of says, well, your life will get worse if you're not drinking.

And I'm here to hold on that.

Sorry to swear.

But, you know, it's my life got better in pretty much every single way that you look at it.

Yes, do I have to put up with some, you know, awkward questions or people who are a little bit difficult?

Yeah.

But, you know, you can go and lose weight and people will criticize you and say, oh, you know, I think you've lost too much.

And, you know, you'll never-

It happened with Adele when she lost weight.

Exactly.

What is the matter with people?

They're criticizing her for losing weight.

I'm like, how does this, how do people even think that-

Yeah, but, you know, you will never please everybody.

So the key thing is to start from within.

But view it as a learning process.

It's not a straight line.

And the reason why I just say that there may be a relapse kind of waiting further down the line is what-

when I'm working with people and that does happen, it's about, okay, what do we do with this then?

Do we just give up?

Do we just go, well, that's it, I clearly can't do this and throw ourselves under the bus?

Or do we go, okay, well, let's just have a bit of a think about, you know, if life had a rewind button, and we could go back to that moment, would you have made a different decision, which is an important question, yes or no?

And if so, what would, what would need to play out differently?

That we would kind of take some, take some learning from it for next time.

And, you know, and so I think don't look at it as kind of completely black and white, view it as a journey back to being that version of you, or to starting to listen, that little voice that is talking to you every day, going like, oh, come on, this is not right what you're doing here.

It's about actually making that the dominant voice, rather than that little part of you that doesn't think you can do this.

And that little part of you does not want to be wrong.

Let's be really clear about that.

And it will try and screw you over.

So one last thing before I want you to tell people about your freedom program, the online program to quit drinking.

Is this helpful?

So I imagine if I was trying to drink, and also imagine I've got the social pressure like you had, like my family and my friends are expecting me to drink.

What might be another example besides riding the bike?

Because if I use the bike, I could go into the bar and go, guys, it's water because I'm riding 20 miles tomorrow, and they'd still want you to drink because that's how they feel, like be friends, but I'm drinking water because I'm driving.

Would it be helpful to people if they had this kind of other thing they want to do?

Take it with them like my bike, it would be in my garage, so I open the door to the garage, do I see the bike?

I get on the bike.

Can you give some more examples of something similar where you can look at what you're trying to do instead of subconsciously get rid of the alcohol?

I think, you know, if you go back to NLP, we experience life through our five senses, visual, you know, how you feel, what you hear and what you smell and taste.

And I guess, you know, a lot of this is about kind of changing how you view the world almost, you know, if you view the world through the inside of a bar, then that's what you're going to see.

So, you know, things like your bike, it's finding little cues that, you know, and if it starts off with crossing some days off on the calendar, if that's your visual thing, you know, I'm no fan of live a day at a time and all the stuff that the years ago, but actually in the early days, it's not a bad thing.

You know, it's kind of like, look, I just want to get a couple of weeks under my belt and I know that maybe the first little while.

So it's about, you know, putting things that are, you know, once you've got this sense of what's in it for you, you know, I'm always telling people.

If your health, so if your blood pressure is getting better, you could track your blood pressure.

I don't like weight because I think that's a really hard one, but if you truly are getting healthier, getting rid of the alcohol, there has to be something you can see in the mirror or a metric you can put on your calendar besides your weight again, that you can go see I'm getting healthier or see I'm doing this or things are different.

Yeah, yeah.

So tell me.

I think it's a very personal thing.

And so the actual, you know, what's in it for you is a kind of a, it's a question, but it's also a kind of process I take people through where you can kind of go, OK, this is where I'm at now.

This is where I think I would be if alcohol was just deleted from the world.

And OK, what's the gap?

What is the difference between the two?

So, you know, I can and I talk to people about doing vision boards.

I mean, I sit with I've got my vision cards here, various different things that goals that I've got.

And it's about making that live in a meaningful way for you.

Again, very different to, you know, don't stand up with the dog.

This is about, so if it's the Tour de France, you know, I had a picture of, you know, some of the Tour de France cyclists riding down the Champs Elysees or over the Alps or whatever.

And it's, when I say it's really personal, I mean, for example, there was a lady I worked with a number of years ago who'd recently retired, and she'd been a big drinker all her life.

And one of her goals was, because her daughter, she now had grandchildren, and her daughter had said, you know, it's great to see you, you can spend all the time you want with the grandkids.

However, I'm not leaving them with you overnight, because there were trust issues there.

And so when I was talking to her, I'm like, okay, so she's like, I need to get this under control, because this is really, you know, kind of jarring against my goal of being the grandmother that I want to be.

And I'm like, perfect, that's absolutely brilliant.

I said, why don't you go on the internet and go and see if you can find a picture of a silver haired lady that looks a bit like you reading a bedtime story to a young child.

And the only thing that it needs to do is it needs to just resonate with you.

So, you know, you'll go through, you can type that into a Google search, you get all the images and there'll be hundreds of them.

And that one that just goes and just vibrates with you, print it off and stick it somewhere where your subconscious mind can see it every day.

Because your conscious mind will dismiss it after it's seen it a few times.

Yeah, I know the picture because your conscious mind is continually overwhelmed.

And then add to that a Google, a picture, a glass of water or soda and put that in her hand.

So, again, whatever resonates.

Because some people are very visual.

I mean, instead of the alcohol, replace the alcohol.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But your subconscious mind will join the dots.

It knows what you're trying to do.

And sometimes if people struggle with imagery, it's more about feelings and the other senses.

If you've got a picture, you want to go on a lovely beach holiday or something like that, I'm like, get your favorite suntan lotion and put a bit of it on the picture.

And then just every time you go by, just give a little sniff.

And olfactory tends to be very strong with memories and things like that.

And it's just, you make this a multi-sensory experience.

And the beauty of the subconscious mind is it doesn't understand time the way that the conscious mind does.

So if you have a future reality, aspirational reality, so the lady sitting reading the thing, if you then experience that in your mind's eye, and you kind of bring that in, your subconscious mind believes that is happening right now.

So it starts to behave in the way of the person that has got their grandkids overnight.

So this is this kind of auto-suggestion and neuro-linguistic programming is about convincing your subconscious mind that this is the reality.

Even if you've not got there yet, when I have my...

So this is for my Iditarod ride with Alaska.

Iditarod by people is the dog sledding, dog sledding.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you can do it on a bike as well.

And I have written on the back.

Yeah, I see, riding your bike with special tires.

Yeah, yeah, the big fat tires for snow.

But I have an affirmation on the back of this that is written in the present tense.

I have qualified for the Iditarod Trail Invitational.

And to go back to, I think something you were saying earlier about being ready for the bumps.

You know, Muhammad Ali was an amazing exponent of this kind of stuff.

And whenever he signed a contract for a fight, he would go to a quiet place and he would sit and he would visualize the end of the fight.

And he would be there with his arm held aloft by the referee and his opponent lying on the canvas and whatever, but he also visualized and felt the injuries that he'd got in the fight.

He did not kid himself that he was not going to get punched.

So he knew that his face hurt, that he'd been hitting the ribs and all this kind of stuff.

Because then when that stuff happened in the fight, he was just like, yeah, this is part of the process, but I'm still going to win.

You're buying a down jacket then to go to Alaska to do the...

Yeah, I'm off to Norway next week to go and do the qualifying run for it.

And that's going to be an education.

So for those listening, Andy's website is sober, soberin7.com.

It will be in the show notes, his courses, The Freedom Programme.

It's an online course to quit drinking.

And is there anything else you want to add, Andy, we haven't talked about?

Yeah, I mean, if people go to the website, I run a...

There's a repeating replay of a web class that I did a little while ago.

And it's about, I don't know, 40, 45 minutes long.

If you're interested about this and you want a bit of inspiration and maybe a bit of a way forward, just go and watch that.

And it gives you the opportunity to book a call with me if you want to and just have a chat.

I'm not a kind of a hard sales kind of guy.

I'm busy and people who resonate with what I'm saying do really well.

And, you know, but some people love AA and that's fine.

You know, I think when you're looking for your answers.

Can't you do both or would it not work to do both?

You can.

I think it's sometimes better to pick one thing.

And, you know, we're talking about commitment versus motivation.

I think sometimes to go right.

I'm going to do one thing and I'm going to do well.

So if you're going to go to AA, go to all the meetings.

They say 90 meetings in 90 days.

Do the 90 meetings in 90 days.

It's a massive commitment.

The reason I ask Andy is because there's a lot of social pressure to do AA.

And I just wonder, okay, if I want to try your program and couldn't I also, okay, I'm starting Andy's program today because I love the idea of doing it a ride with the snow tires on my bicycle and riding my bike and Alps.

You're finding my thing.

Andy's going to help me figure out what I want to do instead of drink.

But at the same time, I feel pressure to go AA.

What can I do both?

I'll go to AA meeting just to say I did.

And if it makes me feel bad, I won't.

But if it's okay, as long as it doesn't conflict, I get what you're saying about not having two coaches though, helping you.

No, I think you can then start to, it's like you can have too much choice almost.

It's, however, try everything.

This is a very personal journey.

And some people will go to an AA meeting and go, oh, thank goodness I've arrived.

This is my tribe.

I see.

And it's like, you know what?

I'll be there applauding.

And it's like, brilliant.

Go you, you know, and run with it.

If that's not for you, try me.

There are other people who do what I do as well.

This whole thing is, you know, trust your gut, trust your instinct, because that's your subconscious mind talking to you.

Also, personally, I think as an engineer, and doing environmental testing and seeing people sick and seeing people who get well again, it's so much the mindset and the belief that that's why I do my podcast.

I think the big change comes about in doing something.

Yeah.

To me, I get what you're saying, Andy, in terms of the AAA, but it's a real complex issue and it's not my expertise, so I'm going to leave it at that.

And this is why I had you on my show.

It's been great.

Amazing.

I really enjoyed it.

Thank you.

Thanks so much, Andy.

Have a great day.

Yeah, you too.

All the best.