Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 061. I Quit Alcohol After Learning This

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

In my latest episode, I dive deep into my journey of the past year without alcohol. And it’s been nothing short of an eye-opener. It's not just about avoiding hangovers. There's so much more to it - from brain health to muscle growth, and even some surprising facts about alcohol's impact on our bodies (let's just say, it ain’t pretty). SUBSCRIBE TO DOMINATION DOWNLOAD A Weekly Newsletter to Help You Dominate in Business & Life https://bedroskeuilian.com/ REGISTER FOR THE LEGACY TRIBE https://bedroskeuilian.com/legacytribe JOIN MY FREE 6-WEEK CHALLENGE https://bedroskeuilian.com/challenge TruLean Supplements | https://www.trulean.com/pages/bedros Get 50% Off Trulean Subscribe & Save Bundle Use Code: BEDROS Few Will Hunt Apparel | https://fewwillhunt.com/ Get 15% Off Your Entire Order Use Code: BEDROS

They know that alcohol is bad for them. They don't have the discipline to stop drinking alcohol and use their own cognitive features, their own self-talk to be able to calm their nerves, to be able to have a good time, to be able to have conversation, be charismatic, ask questions without being under the influence of poison. Welcome to the Bedroskulean show. Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Hey friends, welcome to the Bedroskulean show. I'm Bedroskulean, and today I want to tell you guys why I are. really stopped drinking. Listen, if you've been watching this show or listening to this show for any length of time, you know that about a year ago, November 12, 2022, I stopped drinking. And it wasn't like

anything crazy happened. I didn't go off the deep end, you know, have like a case of beer, chase it down with a bottle of vodka, make some bad decisions, and then woke up regretting everything. It was nothing like that. In fact, the reason I stopped drinking was on that particular day, I had two cocktails like I normally do when I'm at events or whatever. And as I was having the second cocktail with dinner, I realized I'm only having this to take the edge off because I'm naturally an introvert. I don't necessarily like the whole meet and greet part of speaking events and stuff. And I realized that it does help take the edge off.

It does help calm me down. but I pay for it the next day. I'm 49 now. This was last year, so I was 48 years old. And here in my mid to late 40s, even one or two cocktails. And some of you that are in your 40s and beyond can back me up on this. Man, one or two cocktails, I could feel. I could feel the next day.

I'm a little heavy-headed. I'm a little slower. I'm definitely dehydrated. My workouts that morning suck. And I realize why am I doing something that's putting me in a state that is undesirable and incongruent with the man that I want to be, right? In addition to that, and this is maybe just a me problem and not a everybody problem, I realized, well, okay, one, as I'm getting older, my body's having a harder time processing

alcohol. And remember, guys, I'm a very casual drinker at the time, right? Maybe two cocktails twice a month, right? Either at a dinner party or some kind of a speaking event, and then typically there'll be a meet-and-grit with the speakers, right? and I'll have a cocktail or two max to just take the edge off. But also, I realized that when I'd go to sleep every night after having a cocktail or two, I'd get indigestion.

So my sleep was disrupted. Not just disrupted because alcohol disrupts your sleep. That's the whole other thing we're going to talk about here in a minute. But my sleep was disrupted because I would have indigestion, like acid reflux. So I was like, fuck it. I'm done. No more alcohol for me. And I think I made like a whole Instagram post like, hey, today's the day I stop alcohol,

drinking alcohol and here I go. Right. So, you know, as I'm filming this episode right now, it's just been a year now that I've stopped and I don't plan on restarting drinking anytime soon. But I realized as I work with my coaching clients, as I work with the people who are very important to me, my team, if there's any one thing I can encourage anybody to do,

like you guys, because I love you, because I care for you, because I want you to have the highest level of self-mastery. Like if we're all on this journey to become the 2.0 version of ourselves, the 2.0 version of ourselves does not actively go and poison ourselves, right? Then I realized, well, what do I want to do? If there's any one thing I could do for the people that I love, that I care, that I mentor, that I coach, that I pour into, it is to encourage you to just try, try getting off of alcohol

for one year, one year. And I'm going to explain to you why. I think I'm going to make a case that is a valid case and you're going to be like, damn, this makes sense. I'm going to do it. And look, at the end of the end of this episode, if you don't want to do it, don't. I'm going to make a case that's going to impact your money, your mindset, your relationship, your business, like all of it, your health, your physique, right?

It's going to impact all of it. So let's get started. Once I stopped drinking, after about four months, I started to get even more focused in my work. I started to get leaner in my fitness, right? Nothing else had changed. I just stopped drinking about three to four cocktails a month. I started to have better cognitive function, brain function, six, seven, eight months in, I realized like, holy cow, man, I'm like sharper than attack.

And I'm a pretty sharp dude. And I realized I'm sharper than attack right now. Like I'm on fire. And I kept pointing back to the only thing that had changed was that I had stopped drinking at social events. Though I hadn't done anything else. I stopped drinking at social events. My cognition went up. My body started to process fat easier.

I started to get leaner. I started to get stronger. And I'm like, what the hell? because typically as you get older, your metabolism slows down. It's hard to put on muscle. It reversed for me, right? And I'm pretty in tune with my body. So as I started to do the research, I realized that there's literally,

while the effects of alcohol can go away in the next 24 to 48 hours and say the hangover, right? So essentially, what was I feeling when I'd wake up, you know, foggy-headed and a little groggy? With one or two cocktails, me personally, I get hung over, right? For you, it might take five or six beers or several cocktails. I don't know. But the hangover might be gone in two or three days, but there's this buildup of toxins of alcoholic poison in your body that almost slowly slows down your cognitive function,

your focus, your ability to make decisions, like good decisions, your ability for your synapses to fire, for your neurons to transfer information. Like I started to do the research and I went down the rabbit hole. I'm like, holy shit, I got to make an episode.

out of this. And so that's what we're doing here. Now, no, listen, look, we all know that maybe your body definitely takes the biggest beating, right? And as research shows, and for me, look, I don't know what kind of potential cancerous gene I have in my body? I hope I don't. But what if you and I have some kind of cancerous gene in our body? Don't we want to stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible so we can fight that off and we can die of old age instead of cancer? Well, did you know that alcohol actually speeds up the cancer process? So if you've got the potential for cancer, you can actually speed up that process, the process for liver damage, esophagus damage, right? Stomach damage, the lining of your intestines can get damaged.

In fact, I know a guy who had 11 inches of his colon cut out because of chronic alcohol use. And so I looked up chronic alcohol use. Chronic alcohol use is two drinks, an average of two drinks a day. every day or 12 to 15 drinks on a weekend. That's how chronic alcohol use is considered. Now, you might be a person that's like, dude, I think I just realize I'm a chronic alcohol user because I have a couple of glasses of wine every night or I have a couple of beers every night to take the edge off to decompress.

That makes you a chronic alcohol user. And this guy, my friend, was a chronic alcohol user under that capacity, a full-on functioning guy, a professional working man, but he had 11-inch of. of his descending colon cut out because he had colon cancer that was that they felt was a byproduct of chronic alcohol use for over a decade, right? But in addition to that, the negative health benefits compound, high blood pressure, right, which increases the risk of stroke and heart disease, heart disease itself, digestive problems. Like if you've got digestive problems, gut problems, all those things come from that. Cancer's of the following body

parts increase for those who are using alcohol. Mouth cancer, throat cancer, esophagus cancer, voice box cancer, liver cancer, colon cancer, rectum cancer. I don't want anything fucking with my rectum, not alcohol, nothing, right? Let alone cancer. Kidney damage is a byproduct of alcohol abuse because, remember, your liver and your kidneys are like the filtration system in your body. just like your air conditioning system at your house or in your car has a filter to keep all the

pollutants out of your house or out of the car your kidney and your liver act as the filtration system to keep poison out of your body out of your bloodstream well did you know that alcohol is really harsh on your liver and your kidneys and therefore has a easier time getting into your bloodstream which is why you're able to they're able to pull you over and say hey have you been drinking you say yes they go we're going to take you down to the station do a blood draw and see what your blood alcohol volume is, right? So while the liver and the kidney's job is to keep as much poison out of our body of our bloodstream as possible, alcohol is one of the easiest times, the poison has one of the

easiest times getting into your body. And as I'm studying this, I'm like, holy shit. Then I start realizing that the feeling that we're looking for, whether we're alcoholics, whether we're at a party, we want to take the edge off, we're dependent like I was, the feeling that we're looking for, that euphoric feeling that I don't care any more feeling, that feeling where if you have a little too much alcohol, you might start making some bad decisions, decisions that you regret because you lose all impulse control, you lose all sense of judgment, right? You lose motor skills. And then you end up regretting things, whether you ended up

driving a car, bad judgment, bad motor skills, equal driving a car and crashing, killing yourself or others. But that feeling that we're looking for is literally our body trying to take poison out of our body, right? Alcohol is poison. And all your organs and your lungs even try and take the poison out of your body and that poison is what we're feeling we get inniberated so all of our functions are reduced all of our like cognitive functions judgmental functions control functions are reduced and this is where the bad decision fairy comes in and you start making bad decisions that you regret or sending text messages of body parts that you regret and then wonder why you did that or you black out completely right

which by the way is I start talking about the brain. So far I'm just talking about the body. So I start talking about the brain. There's something called alcohol induced amnesia, which is when you black out. Well, as it turns out, you drink enough alcohol over time. You will start having this natural state of amnesia.

You start forgetting shit, right? Almost like another form of dementia. Like, I don't want alcohol induced amnesia. I don't. I want to remember my life. I want to remember the decisions I made because I want to make good decisions. And I'm sharing this with you guys because when you think about the prolonged use of alcohol, like, it is massively damaging.

Like I just stopped because I was like, I don't want any dependency on anything, right? Honestly, like, I try not to even take like Advil or aspirin if I've got a headache. Like if something's like really chronic, like I've got knee pain or back pain for a while because of lifting or jiuitsu, then I'm like, all right, I'm going to take some Advil so I could, I could, you know, alleviate this pain until it recovers. But I try not to have any dependency on everything because the sovereign man, the man who has self-mastery, the man who's become the two-point-o version of himself, should have absolute control of his faculties, right? Now, I know what you might be thinking. You're like, well, wait a minute, man.

Like, it's just an occasional use of alcohol, what I do. Like, I just drink at parties. I just take the edge off like you used to. But I don't wake up, hungover. I don't wake up slow. I don't wake up, foggy head. So why can't I do this, Pedro? It's legal.

I get it. A lot of things are legal. Does that mean that it's right and okay to do, that it's good for you? No, it's not, right? don't you think someone somewhere has an agenda for legally selling you alcohol? I mean, hell, if my son or daughter came to me and then like, Dad, should I drink occasionally or smoke weed occasionally? I would say, son, daughter, I would rather you smoke weed occasionally than drink

occasionally because as I do the research, the massive damage and the fallout from alcohol is huge. In fact, alcohol is the only legal drug that causes generational trauma in families. Think about that. Alcohol is the only drug that causes generational trauma in families because when you're an alcoholic, you say things to your family members that you will later regret. But those things that you say create scars and damage to go on forever that fuck with someone's head, with their trajectory in life, with who they choose, your kids,

with who they choose as a spouse, right? So alcohol causes generational trauma. Like, but it's legal. Does that mean that it's okay? No, it's not. And in fact, when we're talking about the body, your lungs, I always wondered, like, how can they tell from my breath, like a breathalizer, how much alcohol I've had in my bloodstream, right?

You guys ready for this? Your lungs try and work so hard. So when alcohol goes into your bloodstream, your heart starts pumping harder. You go into almost like this, like, fight or flight state is literally what they're calling it. You go into this fight or flight state. your heart starts pumping harder to get the poison out of the body. It sends the poison, obviously it sends it to your liver through your kidneys. It also, because it makes it into your bloodstream, through your bloodstream, it goes into your lungs.

Your lungs want to expel it out, right, through your breath, like when you exhale. This is how it ends up giving you alcoholic pneumonia. You drink alcohol long enough over time chronically. You can get alcoholic pneumonia. Now look, people die of it. pneumonia, I don't want to get pneumonia. I don't want alcohol. It's a decision that I made because I want to take the edge off where I want to have fun and lower my inhibitions tend to bleeding me into either brain damage, body damage, organ damage, right? I'm not looking for that. But what ends up happening

is your heart ends up pumping that blood into your lungs, right, so that it'll filter out the alcohol. The alcohol needs to come out as you exhale, and that is how they can breathalize for you. So think about that. That alcohol finds its way into every crack of your body. The scariest part is it also finds this way into your brain, right? And not only in the way of like reducing inhibitions and impulse control and decision making, but it will actually alter your neurons, the things that actually fire when you are thinking and processing and making decisions and judgments, right? And it is a permanent reduction in size of your neurons.

You don't want that to happen. alcohol passes that blood brain barrier in every capacity. So your brain literally starts getting eroded. The parts of your brain that make the most important decisions begin to get eroded. The brain damage in the form of amnesia, alcohol-induced amnesia, right? These are things that you don't want. And then there's your reputation. So let's talk about that, right?

You're at an event. You had alcohol. Maybe it's a company Christmas party. Maybe it's a family Thanksgiving event. And I get it. Like families are stupid. They can stress all of us out. Whatever, whatever, whatever.

I get it. But at the end of the day, you're making a decision, man, to drink alcohol. And what it's going to do is going to reduce your decision making, impulse control, lower your inhibitions, lower cognitive ability, lower your reflexes, your judgment, and all those things are going to be impaired. That is typically when you say something stupid, when you do something stupid, and when you later regret that stupid thing, you did. And so what does that do to your reputation?

How do you feel about yourself afterwards? Are you at a high frequency or are you at a low frequency for the next few weeks to come? Because you've got your tail tuck because you did something stupid because you chose to have some alcohol, right? And then it ends up really messing with your health and fitness. Remember, I told you that I found myself getting leaner, tighter. My abs came out more. And I'm like, man, nothing else changed but this reduction of alcohol, like three to four cocktails a month, a month for me, right? So as it turns out, what it does, it messes with your hypothalamus and your pituitary gland.

And those two things that are in your head, your hypothalamus and your pituitary gland, those two control a lot of your hormones. So one, when you drink alcohol, it increases cortisol, your stress hormone, right? So now you're in fight or flight. When cortisol is high, you are storing fat and you are burning muscle. That's just how it is. When you are naturally in a stressed place, you're storing fat, you're going to store fat easier, and you're going to burn muscle, waste muscle.

Alcohol increases cortisol and the stress response, but it also dehydrates you. And your muscles, your brain are very water, fluid, dependent. So think about that. If your brain is dehydrated, and this has happened to me before, right, drink like, let's say I'll drink like, whatever, 16 ounces of beer at a bar. There's a place called Rosco's here.

Me and my friend Bobby Dean, shout out to Bobby Dean. Every now and again, we'd go to Roscoes, and we'd belly up and we'd have two or three beer. I'd have like my first 16 ounces of beer, but then I'd go to the bathroom 15, 20 minutes later. And I feel like I'm pissing out like 30 ounces. I'm like, what the hell is going on? Then I'd have another beer that's 16 ounces, go and piss out 30 ounces. Like it always felt like I'm literally urinating more than I'm drinking.

Well, turns out I was. Alcohol literally dehydrates your body, pulls water from your bloodstream, pulls electrolytes through your bloodstream, dumps it into your kidneys, from your kidneys, into your and from here you rethra right into the toilet or the urinal or if you're really, really drunk down your leg, right? Wherever. The point that I'm making here is there's no good that comes from it. But in addition to that, slows down your metabolism and then retards slows down your testosterone

production. But it gets even worse. Alcohol stops muscles from processing protein at an efficient level. So now your muscles that you go to the gym and work out and train. Because remember when we're in the gym, we're working out, man, we are breaking muscles down. We're not building them, right? We're burning calories and we're breaking muscles down. We're putting microscopic tears into your muscles when we're working out.

Remember, I've been a personal trainer for decades. I know this shit. And so if we're putting microscopic tears into your muscles when we're working out with weights, you eat protein and your body converts that protein into amino acids, the building blocks, to rebuild that muscle stronger so that the, the same type of breakdown doesn't impact it anymore. If you are drinking consistently throughout your life, that rebuilding process,

that mobilization of amino acids to rebuild muscles are retarded, are slowed down, are less efficient. I don't know about you, but I don't want that to happen. And I'm guessing that's why my fitness improved after I stopped drinking. That's why my cognitive thinking improved after I stopped drinking. Now, here's the crazy part, like I told you.

I didn't realize as little as three to four cocktails a month, right? Never mind on a weekend or a day a month. That's all I was drinking. It's three to four cocktails a month would build up this poison in my body where I, over time, it slows up, it catches up to you and kind of creeps up on you so slowly. You don't realize this, but you're like, shit, I'm operating at a slower level than I was. And I only realized that after about four to six months of being off of alcohol, completely, I realized that my cognitive functions have improved. I'm sleeping better. I can process

information better. I can make faster decisions. I can be under pressure for longer periods of time. I wasn't as foggy headed. Like, I had gotten foggy headed and I was like, oh, maybe because I'm in my late 40s and I'm starting to get foggy headed sooner throughout the day because of work pressure. Whatever, I guess as part of aging. It's not. That poison had built up in my body and it takes four to six months apparently for your body to purge out that poison. And when it completely purges out, dude, like I'm firing. All synapses and neurons are firing at all new level for me. Like it's nuts. I'm getting older but in better shape, right? And I want that for you. Mentally and physically in better shape. And then think about how socially accepted it is that where people will be like,

wait, you're not drinking anymore. Why? Is everything okay? You're like, yeah, everything's fine. Was there a problem? No, there's no problem. I just stopped drinking. for my health, for my longevity, for just my cognitive benefits. We can't even have one drink. Like, no one would go around like going, is everything okay? You're not taking fentanyl anymore. You're not taking heroin anymore. Well, just take one, two to fentanyl.

Just take a little bit of cocaine. Is everything okay? But there's a stigma that if you don't drink, you're the weirdo. And I realize the reason the stigma of you don't drink, your weirdo exists is because most people know, everybody knows that alcohol is poison. It's not good for you. You're making bad decisions. You're breaking down your brain, your body and your muscles.

Right? And then it lowers your inhibition. So now you're eating shitty food. You're depressed and anxious the next day. Like there's study after study and after study that show that while you have a spike in feeling good while you're drinking it, you have this massive decline in terms of how you feel depressed, anxious, loss of focus, irritability for days afterwards. Like who the fuck wants that? And then for people to go, are you okay? You stop drinking alcohol? Well, why don't you have one? And then you're just trying to encourage you to have one. The reason they, they want to encourage you to have one is because they know that alcohol is bad for them. They don't have the discipline to stop drinking alcohol and use their own cognitive features, their own self-talk to be able to calm their nerves, to be able to have a good time, to be able to have conversation, be charismatic, ask questions without being under the influence of poison. And therefore, they feel guilty about that and they know that misery loves company these stupid fucks and they encourage you to have a cocktail just have one drink it won't hurt you no but it will right and you would never do that with fentanyl with cocaine with heroin you would never say that to a friend just have one little

thing and if you would you're a fucked up friend anyway listen i stopped taking all of those and i started taking this the truly wellness shot in fact i created this because i was sick and tired of every morning taking 11 different supplements like turmeric, ginger, cayenne pepper, black pepper, vitamin B12, echinacea, vitamin C, zinc, right? Think about this. If you want to improve your immune system, if you want to fight off inflammation in your body so that you have better gut health, you have more energy, your joints don't hurt, then you're going to want to take all those supplements. And I was taking it twice a day every day. And so when we created the truly wellness shot, we cut no corners and we spared no expense.

And so in this, you've got something that's going to not only help boost your immune system, but also fight off inflammation. Because if you're a high performer and if you want to get more done, if you want to stay more focused, if you want to make sure that you don't get sick as frequently, then you have to care about your immune system and you have to fight off inflammation, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're high performing and you have a stressful workday from time to time, right? And so here's what I want you to do. You're going to click on the link in the description box or go to truleen.com and you're going to use the code word bedros. And when you

use my name bedros, you'll get 50% off your first subscribe and save bundle. For whatever reason, you don't like the trueling wellness shot, which I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't. Then let us know in your first 30 days will give you full refund, part ways as friends. Fair enough. Go check it out. Use the code word bedrosse. Get 50% off. Peace. I'm making here, guys, is there's zero benefits to alcohol. Just from my own personal experience, yes, it's legal. I get it. But the government has made a lot of things legal.

Like a few years ago, there was this little jab that they made legal very quickly. And a lot of people got it. And study after study is now coming out where they are surveying people that got that jab during 2020. And these people are like, I wish I didn't take it. I'm seeing people falling over left and right. random myocardial events are happening, as in heart events. Hearts are stopping randomly in athletes and regular people and young kids. No one knows why all of a sudden.

It was legal. It was encouraged. And when you watch TV commercials, alcohol is encouraged because it's legal. It's a big business. A lot of things are encouraged. Does that mean that they have the best interest for you? No, you have to decide. what is right for me and my family.

What is the example that I want to lead to my kids? Like if you're just having a cocktail with your kids around, don't you think that they are more likely at some point to have a drink? They are. They are. These are the facts. I wish I had this wherewithal when Andrew and Chloe were younger. Today they're 18 and 16.

They know better. I'm open with them. They were there the day I stopped drinking alcohol a year ago. But I wish that I didn't. model drinking a beer, a cocktail around them during dinner or a cocktail party or something when they were small. So I can't go back in time, but I can tell you because I care for you. I love you. I want to help you. I want to support you. I want to see your trajectory hockey stick in life. Your relationships will improve, I promise you. Your business will improve because

you'll make better decisions. Your relationship will improve because you won't make bad decisions. your health will improve because you will be more likely to burn fat, build muscle, and be motivated to go work out. Your sleep will improve and therefore your cognitive functions and your physical functions will improve. Everything is upside when you stop drinking and no matter how little you drink, there's absolutely downside. Study after study after study proves no matter how little you drink, there's absolute downside. Now you will definitely find studies and if you dig deep enough, Those studies that are done by companies that sell alcohol. If you wonder how these university studies are done,

when they go, hey, the university of wherever found that two glasses of wine every evening is good for your heart, increases this for your heart. Those studies are paid for by companies to universities for them to do a study. And they go, here's our product, do a study, and what benefits can you find from it. They don't say what destructive features do you find from it. They go, we're paying you, university lab, to have your students do a study on our product

and see, are there any benefits? And then the marketing department takes whatever the benefits are, and those benefits never outweigh the negatives. And they go, hey, these are the benefits of drinking alcohol twice a day, two glasses a day with dinner. You're good to go, right? Like I could literally take the trulean wellness shot, the the trulean grass fed weight protein, go to any university, pay them because they need to be paid.

Those departments need money. That's how studies are done. And then I go, hey, here's my product. And can you tell me what's good about it for the physical body? What's bad about it for the physical body? And they'll give me the list after doing the study. I can take what's good about it and just market that to consumers and go, this is why you should be drinking truly wellness shots, right? This is why I should be taking the grass-fed way protein.

Now, obviously, these products are good. There's plenty of good products out there because they're not poison for your body. But where alcohol is concerned, guys, if I did my job right, I hopefully, hopefully was able to talk you out of drinking alcohol, even occasionally, even recreationally, even sporadically. And I want you to try just quitting alcohol all of alcohol for 12 months straight. And then at the end of that 12 months, you decide whether you want to get back to drinking or not. It's up to you. Guys, thank you for watching and listening to this episode of the Bedros-Coolion show. Remember that 72% of you watching this on YouTube are not subscribed to the channel. So I would really appreciate it if you got any value from this episode

or from any of my episodes that you would subscribe to the Bedros-Colian show on YouTube. And those of you on Spotify, iTunes, and across all the podcast platforms, thank you for making the Bedros-Coolian show, top five across all industries and all. genres appreciate you guys and remember this that average is the enemy that success is your responsibility and change can take place in an instant when you decide to flip the switch peace out back when cue was rolling with Lorenzo and a benzo i was banging with a gang of