In this solo YouTube presentation, Amber Hollingsworth explains why entrepreneurs are disproportionately vulnerable to alcohol use disorder (AUD) and how excessive drinking can erode their businesses, families, and personal well‑being. She begins by outlining the multilayered stressors unique to founders—financial responsibility to families, employees, and customers, isolation in decision‑making, and the relentless mental load of constantly problem‑solving. This chronic stress creates a fertile ground for self‑medication with alcohol. Hollingsworth then describes how business culture often normalizes heavy drinking through client entertainment, networking events, and “wine‑and‑dine” expectations, turning social drinking into a habit that can spiral into dependence. She explores the feedback loop between family members who notice the problem, friends who downplay it, and the entrepreneur’s own denial, highlighting how these dynamics can mask the severity of the issue while simultaneously increasing relational tension. Practical barriers to treatment are discussed, including fear of losing momentum, concerns about reputation, and the logistical challenge of stepping away from a business that only they can run. Hollingsworth offers a hopeful roadmap: leveraging the same ambition, drive, and problem‑solving mindset that fuels entrepreneurship to confront AUD without necessarily requiring long‑term residential treatment. She addresses common fears about sobriety—loss of social fun, client expectations, and identity—and reframes sobriety as a competitive advantage that restores energy, clarity, and emotional bandwidth. The talk concludes with a call to action: assess personal drinking against the official DSM‑5 criteria (linked in the description), seek help early, and explore further videos on the channel for ongoing support.
Chapters
Nearly 15 million people in the United States alone struggle with an alcohol use disorder, and entrepreneurs are especially at risk. Imagine you pour your heart and soul into your business. It's like your baby, but the stress of it can be overwhelming. And for many, the temptation to have a couple of drinks to unwind and relax and basically shut your brain off can start to overtake everything. So let's take a look at why entrepreneurs are particularly at risk for alcohol use disorders, how it impacts them, their family, and their business. And we'll spend a little time talking about how to get yourself out if you find that you or a loved one is in that situation. My name is Amber Hollingsworth, and you are watching Put the Shovel Down. Let's start with something that might seem obvious, but it is the high stress that entrepreneurs face. Now, I know that all of us working adults can face stress, but entrepreneurs have multiple layers of stress. Many of us know what it's like to have a family rely on us for financial support, income, pay the bills, put food on the table. Their employees and their employees' families rely on that business for financial support. The customers look to the business, maybe not for financial support, but to help solve whatever problem the business solves. And so entrepreneurs have a lot of weight on their shoulders that they're carrying around. Layer on top of that, you have to make really big decisions, and you probably don't have a sounding board to help you Think through how to make those decisions. It's a pretty lonely and isolated place to be. While being an entrepreneur is very exciting, it's also very lonely and super stressful. That stress eventually begins to pile up on you, and drinking can feel like an easy way to relax, unwind, and let go of the work stressors. Because that's not easy for entrepreneurs. It's harder for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are constantly thinking, constantly problem solving, constantly thinking about how to get ahead and what they should do next in marketing and employees and And all these really complicated problems that they're trying to figure out. It's very difficult to turn that off. I'm not sure if you've heard this or not, but I've heard this saying and it stuck with me because I'm an entrepreneur. Becoming an entrepreneur is like trading in your 9-to-5 job for a 5-to-9 job, and that is just exactly what it's like. And so that temptation to drink is a real thing. So I want you to keep all that in mind. Let's put that right here and let's layer a couple things on top of that. In addition to all that, there is a culture of drinking around business. Of course, there's a culture of drinking just period anywhere, right? But in business, I have dealt with many businessmen who it was pretty much in their job description to throw big drinking events or to take customers or clients out and wine and dine them, which included a lot of drinking or playing golf on the golf course, which actually looks like a leisure activity, but in some cases is a business activity. But drinking is also sort of an That goes along with that. And so as you're building a business and you are taking on all these stressors, you will drink socially and for business, as in it can be part of the job. And that's where the habit can start. Oftentimes with entrepreneurs, it starts because of this business expectation for drinking, like, like taking out clients, or maybe it's just about having fun with your friends, but it starts out as maybe normal to heavy social drinking. But once the stress starts to take over and you start to drink in order to deal with stress, now you're in a situation where you're self-medicating. And this is what makes people really vulnerable to developing an alcohol addiction. When we're using something to medicate a problem, naturally we're going to need that medication pretty regularly. And because of the way drinking works, we build more and more tolerance. It becomes less and less effective. We need more and more of it. And you know how that story goes. Now in the beginning, we're drinking to alleviate stress and anxiety, but over time, the drinking is actually increasing our stress and anxiety. And it can be hard to know that that's exactly what's happening to you because it's not so much of when you're drinking, you feel more stressed. It's the aftermath of the drinking, the rebound from the alcohol. It's about what it does to your brain chemicals and how your brain is trying to restabilize. And so over time, you take somebody who was already sort of at the top limit of stress, and now you're layering in more and more and more anxiety on the top of it. As if this situation isn't a mess enough. If you're imagining this like I am, it's like this person is already in a big hole, but now let's put some more pressure on the top of that. If you're an entrepreneur and you're in this situation, the chances are that your family, particularly your spouse or your partner, is probably by now picking up on the fact that you're drinking too much, and now they're starting to get on your case about it. And so this person that's there with you the most often, which you could possibly lean on their shoulder, they're upset with you. They don't like your coping mechanism, and they start verbalizing that to you. When that happens, you feel even more backed into a corner. You can feel resentful, you can feel unappreciated, and the thought that comes to your head is, you don't even appreciate any of the other things I do. Maybe you recognize that you drink too much from time to time, but it's frustrating when that's all anyone can see about you. Chances are, if you're in this situation, maybe not everyone around you knows that you are drinking too much, but your closest family member probably does. And my guess is that's your partner or spouse. So another layer of complication to add into this big spiderweb of complications is that the other people you know drink heavily too. And if you start to even mention to a buddy, a friend, a business colleague that your wife's on your case about your drinking, they're very likely to say to you, oh man, you don't even drink as much as I do, or it's not that big a deal. You're definitely not alcoholic. Some of that could be because they have their own alcohol problem, right? And some of that could be because they just don't see the negative impact of the drinking because people can function in their business or career life really, really well for a long period of time with an alcohol addiction. The balls are first going to start to be dropped at home. And so you're getting reinforcement from your work life and from your friends that you're great, everything's fine. Maybe you're making money, maybe you're successful. And then your family, your spouse is on your case constantly. And that reinforces even more that it's not you that has a problem. It's them that has a problem. And then after that goes on for a while, you start thinking, uh, the reason I'm drinking is because you're on my case all the time. And you feel more and more and more pushed into a corner. And it can feel very much like a trap, especially if you have children, because if you have a separation or a divorce from your partner and they claim that you're an alcoholic, that is going to have major repercussions on Things like child custody. And in addition to all that, even if you decided that you wanted to get help, you do want to get help, the idea of having to be away from your business for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days is pretty scary because it's not like there's another coworker that can just step in and do your job for you while you're out. There is no one else that does the job that you do. So this pressure to keep the momentum going, to keep the business running, also impede your ability to get help. And that's not even mentioning the fact that you probably have some fears and concerns about what it's going to look like if you go to treatment, as in what are people going to say? Is it going to negatively impact your reputation? And that could be even more serious depending on the kind of business that you run. These are all special considerations that business people, particularly entrepreneurs, face. But luckily there is a way out of this. If you're still a pretty highly functioning person, chances are you can conquer this problem without having to go away to 30, 60, or 90 days of treatment. In fact, I treat businessmen all the time. Businessmen who drink too much is actually my favorite type of client. I think I just really relate to those struggles. The key to overcoming this is to take that part inside of you, that ambition, that drive, that I will figure out the problem at all costs, no matter what. I will keep picking myself up and moving forward. That part that makes you an entrepreneur is the part that is going to help you overcome this problem. You just have to tap into that and start using it to help you dig out of this hole. You did not work this hard for your blood, sweat, and tears to build what you've built to be taken down by alcohol. It's not worth it. Now, I know the idea of being sober, being a non-drinker, is scary for a lot of reasons. Like, you may be worried that you'll never have fun again. You may be worried that what are people going to say? What am I going to tell to my drinking buddies? What am I going to say What if I have to take clients out and wine and dine them? There's a lot of fears here. Once you get on the other side of those fears, you are going to be so glad and grateful that you chose sobriety because you're going to feel like you have a major advantage over everybody else. And I know when you're a business owner and you're an entrepreneur, that advantage, that's what you're looking for at all times. And I'm telling you, being sober is that advantage, not just advantage over someone else that has an alcohol problem, but advantage over anyone else who drinks. Even if they drink just sort of socially or normally or regularly, alcohol doesn't do anyone any good and it eats up your time, your energy. You feel bad the next day. It causes relationship stress, which also eats into your time and energy. And so once you can take that off of the table and you're not dealing with that anymore, the amount of emotional energy that you're going to have to put toward building your empire is literally going to triple. You're going to feel like you've got some kind of magical advantage because in essence, you will get a big advantage. One thing that I hear over and over and over again from, from the business people I see is at first it's hard. You know, maybe they're going to some kind of networking event or whatever, and they're like, I don't know what I'm going to do, and there's going to be drinking, and we're like talking through all that. But ultimately what ends up happening is when they come back and they see me, they're telling me about the event or whatever, they can say, Actually, it wasn't that hard at all. And actually, when we got up the next morning to go to the meeting, to go to the event or whatever, I felt great. And I was looking around at everyone else and they, you could tell that they felt like dog crap. And then it becomes one of those moments where you feel really proud of yourself and really happy about the decision you make. And you will start to notice more and more and more moments like that. I don't know that I've ever met anyone who regretted Getting sober, but I have certainly met a lot of people who regretted not addressing the problem sooner. So if this is you and you think that maybe you are developing any level of alcohol use disorder, now is the time to deal with it. Maybe you don't feel like you're a full-fledged alcoholic. You probably, maybe you don't even drink every day, but when you notice that it's causing problems more and more and more frequently, now's the time to get ahold of it. You'll be so glad that you did. If alcohol is a little bit of a problem for you, but you're questioning whether or not it really is like an alcohol use disorder, then I want you to watch this video next. And I'm going to put a link in the description below for you to download the official criteria for alcoholism. There's 11 of them. You read through them, you count how many you have, and then it tells you how to score yourself. And that should give you some clarity about where your problem falls on a scale of severity. And of course, there are tons more videos on this YouTube channel about how to conquer this problem. So if you're not subscribed, go ahead and do that so you can get your life back on track and go out there and do the things that you're meant to do.
