A first-person YouTube talk by Cameron Herold recounting that six to seven years ago he behaved inappropriately at a conference while heavily drinking and was asked not to attend future events. He explains the personal triggers (marital problems, social anxiety, sex addiction) and details gradual steps toward sobriety (annual month off, monthly week off, limiting drinking to post-workout or dinners) culminating in a decision to stop drinking 48 days prior to the recording. He apologizes to those he hurt, reflects on taking responsibility and doing inner work, and urges leaders and communities to both hold people accountable and provide support for growth.
Chapters
Six, seven years ago, I was going through some issues. I wasn't happy in my marriage. I was drinking a lot, and that just became a big habit of mine. Pretty much every speaking event I've ever done, I would show up at the event. I would ask for a drink. Often I would be standing on stage with a glass of wine and speaking from stage with a glass of wine. I thought it was pretty chill, but the reality was I had a problem. I was using alcohol and often using it to kill the pain in my relationship, to kill the pain at home, to, you know, struggling being a dad and raising kids, and definitely the social anxiety of showing up at conferences. I also have a bit of a sex addiction, and I would, you know, flirt relentlessly and, you know, probably make comments that were not appropriate for the time or for the environment that I might have been in. But really, everything was related to alcohol and to drinking. If I go back to the core of everything, six years ago, I was at a conference conference I'd attended for a number of years, and I was drinking a lot. What no one at the conference knew was my wife at the time had asked me for a divorce about a couple of weeks earlier. I was in a very, very painful state, and so I was using alcohol just to get through the day. I started to behave pretty inappropriately. I had a client who was at the event with his wife who, at the end of one night, and I was absolutely inebriated. I kind of slapped her on the butt as she went by and said, hey, you look great. And, you know, completely wrong and inappropriate. And I've apologized since. Apart, I think I made some other inappropriate comments, even at the conference as well. Again, drinking virtually all day long and all night long. I went out to a small group of about four or five people sitting at a bar, and they were talking business. And I was like, I don't want to talk about business. Like, I just didn't want to talk about business. But instead of being able to slide into a conversation to talk about life or ideas or issues or, you know, things people were thinking about, I decided to shake up the group in a bit of a jackass way. And I brought up, you know, sex, and I brought up sex toys. And I did it in a way to kind of shake the group up. And I knew I was doing it, but again, not appropriate and frustrated some people that were there. Long story short, I was asked to not bother attending that event in the future, which was hard for me because I love the people. I love the community. I Love the organizer. And it was hard for me to go inward, but when the founder of the group talked to me about it, it made sense. And he laid it on the line and told me what had happened and the people that I'd hurt and how I'd been behaving and how it wasn't really a fit. And I was like, dude, I get it. Thousand percent, I get it. So what I decided to do was to do the work. And so six years ago, I decided to dig in, and I started to take one month off every year from drinking. One of the years, I did no drinking, no coffee, and no cannabis. Anyway, I did a month off every single year without alcohol to prove that I didn't have a problem or to show myself that I could beat it. Then I did a week every single month for the last two years. And then in the last couple of years, I also would not drink unless I had done a workout during the day. My new wife stopped drinking three years ago. So she started to even give me kind of the courage to, you know, be able to start really cutting back as well. In the last probably 12 to 18 months, it got down to maybe I was drinking, like, at a dinner. I might have one or two drinks, really. Then it was like, what's the point of even having it at a dinner? And I was cutting that even back then, just having, like a drink at dinner. Then I was down to about two days a week. And 48 days ago, I just decided to stop. And I've said to her and to myself, I don't think I'm quitting drinking forever. I really do enjoy having a glass of wine at a really nice meal. But I'm never going backwards to where I was where, you know, the social anxiety, drinking, the drinking by myself, drinking, the opening a bottle of wine at the end of the day, drinking that is gone. I've just done two events, didn't have a single drink the whole time I was there. So this isn't about not drinking this. This is about a lesson that I just learned from this. So the lesson that I took from this was take responsibility, own it, go inward, do the work. And so I've done the work, and I feel good about it. I've tried to make all the apologies I can. There were some people that I hurt who I've not been told who they are, so I can't apologize to them profusely. So I'm hoping that this video gets shared and they see it. I've asked the people who do know that this was me. That they make apologies on my behalf, that they let people know that I'm sorry and that I didn't mean to hurt them. And I'm ashamed and I'm working on it. And it's not who I am deep down, but it certainly was who I was at the time. So the other lesson that just occurred to me last week, and this is a bit of a spin on this, was I reached out to the community and just to let them know where I was and tell them I love them and blah, blah, blah. But it occurred to me that as humans, we're also here to support each other. And as leaders, as CEOs and as CEOs, our job is to really help grow people, right? To grow their skills and to grow their confidence. And if people are the right kind of people, if we know them deep down and we know that they've up, say it's an employee who's up and we help them through a personal development plan or, you know, it's a leader who needs growth work or inner work. So we get them a mentor or a coach or have them read Leadership and Self Deception. The idea is to not throw the people to the curb. And what I realized was that I was kind of thrown to the curb in a way, and I felt sad about that. The growth opportunity I think we all have is to hold people to their account, right? To make sure they understand they fucked up, how they up, how you need them to respond differently, penalize them by saying you can't be a part of the group or you can't come to work or whatever. But then we should also try to be there to support them. Because imagine if people had given me some the support to grow, right? The support to get through these addiction issues, the support to actually come out the other side like I think I am would have been one really good one. But the other side is we could also be helping the people who were frustrated with me address conflict, feel like they're in a safe space where they can address conflict, feel like they can actually approach somebody and talk to them about how they were hurt and how they didn't show up appropriately. And to not do that. We've really missed massive opportunities for all of us to learn. For me to learn for the community, to learn how to support someone and to help them through something and hopefully help them come out the other side. Maybe not to ever come back still, but still to be able to help grow humans. And then also for the people that were pissed off, the people that were frustrated, and rightly so, to help them understand how to deal with conflict and how to deal with these issues versus just saying, hey, let's get rid of the issue and pretend it doesn't exist and go on our merry way thinking that everything is great. Because it's kind of like throwing people in prison. You can't pretend that the issues don't exist. The issues are there and by just putting people in prison, it doesn't make the issues go away. Lots of lessons there. I just personally also want to say thank you to the group and the community that did throw me out, that did tell me that I'd f ed up, that did show me that I needed to change, and also to the leader of the community for being a lifelong friend who I know will always be there and have my back, and for also him having the courage to sit down with me and say this isn't okay and you really hurt a lot of people and I know it was hard for him as well. So I appreciate everybody. I love everybody and hopefully this will help a few people in lots of different ways. So don't stop now. Click here. There's more great videos that you can keep learning from and together we're unlocking amazing leadership lessons together.
