4 Surprising Lessons From 4 Years Sober

All right. Last week I hit 4 years sober, and I want to share 4 deeper realizations that might completely change the way that you think about your relationship with alcohol. But first, here's a bit of my story. So giving up alcohol is hands down one of the most transformative decisions I've ever made. And if I look back on it, I had no idea how much it was holding me back. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. Now, look, I was never a heavy drinker. I would have maybe a few bottles of wine a week, and they would mostly be on the weekends. I would definitely have a few more drinks when I was out with friends, but I think that's pretty standard, and it was nothing out of the ordinary. But the day after drinking, and sometimes for days afterwards, I would feel awful. The anxiety started to hang around for longer. And I started to feel that my mood was all over the place. And at that time in my life, I had a huge problem. I felt completely stuck with my health and fitness. I just couldn't seem to get going with it, and I couldn't string together more than a few good weeks. And this is pretty painful to admit, but I really hated how I looked. And I know hate is a strong word, but it's true. I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin. I was extremely self-conscious and I was just frustrated and disappointed in myself. Now, I tried setting rules to moderate my drinking, but they failed every time. And eventually I realized I needed a clean break. And here I am 4 years later, no drinks and no desire even remotely to ever go back. And the best way I could describe how it felt was it's like taking the handbrake off life. I have unlocked a version of myself that I didn't even know was possible. So in this episode, I want to walk you through the 4 biggest, less obvious realisations I've had since giving up alcohol. And I'm not just going to cover the surface level stuff like no hangovers, less anxiety, etc., but the deeper shifts that explain why sobriety has changed everything for me. So let's dive into those 4 things. So the first one is, you you get results that you can't predict. Now, I thought giving up alcohol would mostly help with energy, mood, and maybe a little bit of weight loss. But the impact went way, way deeper. It took my life in a direction I just couldn't have imagined, and in the best possible way. So a good example is my foundational health habits. Shortly after quitting alcohol, I started to get way more serious about my lifestyle. And that slowly evolved into a full-blown journey of discovering and tracking what are now my 8 foundational health habits. And I have no doubt that if I hadn't given up alcohol, I wouldn't have gone on that journey and I definitely wouldn't be living the lifestyle that I have now. That shift alone has been massive for me. Now, over the last 4 years, I've developed a level of discipline and capability I didn't even know I had. And that's extended to every area of my life. And yes, removing alcohol helped directly. But more than that, it triggered a chain reaction, a sort of trickle-down effect that made me a more intentional and capable person overall. Now, one of my favorite quotes is from Steve Jobs, and it goes a little bit like that. Well, it goes exactly like this. You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. And I found myself repeating that quote so many times since I heard it. And it's exactly how I felt. And the big takeaway: you can't predict where this kind of change will lead, but you can trust it will take you into a far better version of yourself one way or another. You just have to make the decision, commit, and buckle up for the ride. All right. Number 2: It unlocks a whole new level of health and fitness in me. Now, I always knew giving up alcohol would help with my health, but I didn't expect just how significant the change would be. As I mentioned earlier, my 8 foundational health habits are now a huge part of my life, and that's been the backbone of how I'm now able to train, eat, and feel every day. When it comes to training and nutrition, I'm operating at a level that I couldn't have fathomed before. I'm training 6 times a week That's strength, high-intensity zone 2 cardio, plus 10K steps a day. And it's now just normal for me. It's just how I live. And it blows my mind that just 4 years ago, I couldn't even sustain even a quarter of that for more than a couple of weeks. And the same goes for nutrition. I've shifted to eating mostly whole foods. I've quadrupled my protein intake and I track my calories and my macros consistently. Now, I wouldn't say it's as effortless as my training yet, but it's on a completely different level to where it used to be. And these shifts in how I train and eat means I'm now the healthiest and fittest I've ever been by a long shot. But more importantly, I feel better in myself. I'm no longer ashamed of how I look, and in fact, I'm starting to feel genuinely proud of my physique. And here's the real litmus test for me. I'm no longer embarrassed to take my top off. And that might sound small, but for me it's massive. That hasn't been true for most of my adult life and even a fair bit of my younger years. And I can say with total certainty that none of this would have been possible if alcohol was still in the picture. Number 3, it changed my relationship with sleep. Now, I didn't realize how important sleep was to me until I gave up alcohol. Once alcohol was completely out of the picture, my sleep improved massively and I was shocked by how much better I felt. Clearer, more stable, and more capable just from sleeping well. And then something strange happened. On the rare nights I did sleep badly, I'd wake up feeling hungover. Now, a few times, just for a split second, I actually thought I'd had drinks the night before. That's literally how rough I felt. And that's when it really hit me. Quality sleep is everything. And I don't think I could have fully realized that without removing alcohol first. Giving up drinking then became the catalyst for our whole journey to improve my sleep from a low quality average of 6 hours a night to now an average of 7.5 hours of high quality sleep. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this improvement in sleep might have had an even bigger impact than giving up alcohol itself. So the last and final realization is a quieter brain. And this one is a really, really big one for me, actually. I had no idea how much mental space alcohol was taking up. The rules I kept setting, the negotiations and the exceptions, and the guilt when I broke those rules, and also just the low-level, constant frustration. Once alcohol was gone, all of that went with it. It felt like I'd let go of something that had a subtle but constant hold over me, and it made me realize I can't afford to give that kind of control to anything in my life. And since then, I've actually become more aware of other areas of my life where that same pattern shows up. So caffeine is the next one on my radar. I'm not going to give up caffeine. I love my coffee too much, but I've noticed more internal chatter around my rules with caffeine, and I'm becoming more attached to those two morning coffees than I'd like to be. It's— sorry. It's also one of the reasons I like intermittent fasting, because it feels like my way of asserting control over what is sometimes a complicated relationship with food. It is a bit like I'm saying, I'll eat on my terms, thank you very much. And giving up alcohol showed that even things that don't seem like a huge problem can still take up way too much space in your life. And that kind of invisible drain is super distracting and it becomes a drag on your day-to-day life. And I'm now far more self-aware of anything that starts drifting in that into that type of territory, and I'm quicker to take back control. So that's the full realizations. 4 years sober. It's been one of the most important and transformative decisions I've ever made. And like I said, not because I hit rock bottom, but because I realized something subtle was holding me back and I had the courage to remove it. That one decision unlocked a completely different version of me. Healthier, more capable, more disciplined, and far more in control. Now, if, if alcohol is something that you're wrestling with, even just quietly, I'd encourage you to get curious about it. Ask yourself, how much space is it taking up and how much might it be holding you back? And I would also challenge you to be really honest with yourself. Really examine the story you're telling yourself about how much alcohol is playing a role in your life and importantly, how much it might be holding you back, because there's a decent chance you might be trying to BS yourself. At least that was the case for me. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't a problem for a long time. Before I had to admit it was a problem. And you might be trying to do the same. Now, you don't have to hit rock bottom to make a change, and you also don't have to commit to quitting forever. You just have to be open-minded to the fact that there could be a better version of you on the other side and to take the first step towards exploring it. I hope that has helped, and I will see you in the next episode.