Begin Again with Davina McCall - Alcohol: The Unseen Damage! This Is The Real Damage of Drinking. It's More Than You Realise. Sobriety Advocate, Ruari Fairbairns.

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

In this episode of Begin Again, Davina is joined by Ruari Fairbairns, founder of One Year No Beer. Ruari challenges the myths society perpetuates about drinking, and is on a mission to transform the way we think about alcohol. Through his insights, listeners are encouraged to reevaluate their relationship with alcohol, empowering them to break free from societal norms and embrace a healthier, more mindful approach to life. Follow me here: www.instagram.com/beginagain https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  (00:00) Intro (01:08) Ruari’s Journey: Overcoming Alcohol Dependence (03:10) How Alcohol Impacted Every Aspect of Ruari’s Life (04:41) The Moment Ruari Realized Alcohol Was Too Much (06:09) Ruari’s Life-Changing Meditation Journey (07:28) The Connection Between Alcohol and Menopause (10:10) How to Recover from Alcohol Addiction: Ruari’s Story (17:50) Managing Anger: Steps Toward Emotional Healing (18:57) Breaking Free from Societal Expectations (21:17) The Hidden Truth About Peer Pressure: Statistics Revealed (24:55) Ruari’s Experience with the ‘One Year No Beer’ Program (26:59) What It’s Like to Meet the Dalai Lama (29:45) ZOE Ad (31:13) Ruari’s Encounter with Richard Branson (33:09) Creating Hope and Changing Lives: Ruari’s Mission (37:05) Understanding the Root Causes of Addiction (41:16) Is Drinking Occasionally Better Than Not Drinking at All? (49:04) What Percentage of People Actually Take Action? (53:08) The Fear That Trauma Is the Secret to Success (54:12) Why Men Avoid Confronting Their Emotions (56:23) Five Key Lessons from This Conversation You Can’t Miss Sponsored by: ZOE - https://zoe.com and use code DAVINA10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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SuvW, German engineered for all. Alcohol is the world's most harmful drug. Totally. The fear of who am I if I choose to change my relationship with alcohol? That fear is what keeps the vast majority of people stuck. And what everyone is saying on the other side is... You've made me really have a bit of a light bulb moment about my own life here. We live in a world where you can be precluded if you don't drink alcohol.

People hated it if I didn't have a drink with them when I went. went out. Peer pressure is, yeah, should we catch up with the guys later? You know what? We should really go out for a drink sometime. It feels pressure, doesn't it? And this is the thing that we help people understand as well is that... So that's the first most important thing. Okay. Where did you get to the point where you went? Oh my God. The thing about it was, it was about hope. Alcohol is hopelessness. Yes. People are like, uh, fancy having a drink because they want to switch off. But you're switching off the noise. And inside the noise, Yes, there's pain.

Yes, there's suffering. But so are these other voices. So are the opportunities to... Oh, God. My first interest in you was I thought, oh, here's somebody else who is celebrating sobriety, but also really wanting to try and do good in the world. And I don't know anything about your backstory

or what brought you to this place. So first of all, were you? alcoholic? Well, I, let's just check in on a couple of things here because this is a complicated answer. So first of all, the term alcoholic, and that is a older term not used by the scientific community today. So what we use now today is alcohol use disorder. And if you're asking if I had alcohol use disorder in my life, absolutely. Most people who binge drink, have alcohol use disorder. It ranges from mild, moderate, severe. Can I ask you something there? You said binge drink specifically? Not just binge drinking, but also daily drinking, all of those kind of things,

absolutely. But to give people the context of where I was, I'm just a typical party boy social person. I was always first in and I was always last out. And I got all of my energy from being the most outrageous, wild, unbelievably crazy person, right? And so I loved the party. I loved that. And alcohol in my 20s also led to drugs. You know, I did a lot of part of drugs when I was younger. And I think, you know, the things I didn't really realize, I didn't really link them to the alcohol consumption. I didn't realize that alcohol was causing these other things that I was trying to sort out. And I would say that when I did actually finally change my relationship with alcohol, that's when you look back and you go, oh, wow. You know, I didn't realize that I was not that bad, but that it was having that impact on me.

What were the things? So let's look at it from the other perspective. So it's hard in the moment to see what impact alcohol is having on you because of its sort of not just its brainwashing, but society. expectations and also the ignorance and things like that. So what happens when you remove alcohol? Well, I mean, the lights go on, you know, the sudden increase in energy, clarity, productivity. IBS, a decade of seeing doctors, Chinese health medicine, you've got IBS, taking medication, disappeared, right? So psoriasis, gone. So depression, anxiety, significantly reduced. So there were all of these things that I wasn't really attributing to this regular alcohol consumption.

And even at the time, it was only two, maybe three times a week, drinking, probably binge drinking, sometimes heavily. So, and that still today is pretty normal. That's what normal drinking behavior looks like. And yet I had all of these benefits. And talk about the other benefits, right? Relationship significantly improved. Happiness levels higher. You know, just doubled my business in the first 12 months of changing my relationship with alcohol.

So it's instead of us looking at it like what problems is alcohol causing you, let's have the conversation of what is alcohol robbing you of that you are not being? There's so much that I want to unpick here. But I'm going to start with, I guess, the end of your journey, when was it too much? Where did you get to the point where you went, oh my God, I'm literally not handling myself in the way. Were you a middle drinker that's tipped over the edge? And then you went, right, okay, I have to stop. And what made you want to help other people?

So there were a few warning signs. I never had a rock bottom moment. And it's again, it's another parody. It's another thought in the space. that you must find rock bottom. We're going to debunk that to be, okay? So, A, there was some of the health and niggling. I knew, so I'd started meditating on the train to and from work.

And this meditation, which is one of the things we highly recommend for people, meditation builds a gap between stimulus and response. So if stimulus is, I'm craving or I'm stress or I'm tired, when there is no gap, it's just you reach for a drink, okay? It's on autopilot. You stub your toe, you lash out. So as you start to meditate, we build a gap inside that. And inside that gap is intuition and wisdom.

So in between I'm stressed and tired comes, actually, I don't want to feel that rubbish tomorrow. So I'm probably not going to have a drink. And so that's why meditation can be so powerful in awareness. I think all of this came from that. It really was the birthing part into there from meditation. So going on the train to and from, I would use it as a. my transition to become the other version so I could be dad and husband and things that have had. But on that train journey, I just got this continued gnawing, you know, in the beginning

for people with their relationship with alcohol, because it's so marketed, it's so peer pressured, it's so socially normal. The knowing is very quiet. It's like, hey, Davina, this alcohol thing. It's costing you more than you realize. Okay. And it starts for gently. I think it's happening to most people who drink, and it always happens on Sunday after a binge fest. Like, oh, God, do it. Right? The regret. Do you want to know something? Yeah. In the, in the community, a large survey in this study done, they asked people, what was the time it took? From the first thoughts of, I think alcohol is causing me trouble, to asking for help, the average time was 11 years. Years, yeah.

That doesn't surprise. I hear this all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm here to shorten that, then. That is what we are here to do. This is going to be music to so many people's ears. I hear this from people specifically, I guess,

because these are my people, menopausal women in particular, you know, that it's a tough time for your life. You've got a lot going on. But I hear often and I'm not happy with my relationship with alcohol or its relationship with me, I think, is more. So just on menopause, and then we'll go back. So menopause, alcohol is kryptonite for menopause. Totally. You are five times more likely to have significant menopause symptoms if you are regularly consuming alcohol. And the limit, 14, right, this is the recommended limit. This is six drinks

of wine a week. There's nothing to what people are drinking at. And that isn't like saying you should be drinking six of us. That is the limit that you said. Yeah, that's the limit. Yeah. It's not a people I'm kind of going, oh, I haven't had my 14 yet. That's like, exactly. So, um, yes, I mean, I, it's interesting because you've just confirmed with a stat, something that I see and hear that women feel worse symptom wise, but also the hangover, it appears that, um, in some way they are processing alcohol in a completely different way, because the hangovers appear to my experience with my friends much worse. Yeah, exactly.

It is absolutely true. And we need to have more conversations like this to be saying to people that this is only making it significantly worse. What is insidious about alcohol specifically is that for everything that people are taking alcohol for is what it is taking away. How do you mean? I have social anxiety. alcohol increases anxiety. I am feeling sad and depressed, so I'm going to have the comfort of a drink. Alcohol is one of the world's most powerful depressants.

It creates depression. I can't sleep. I can't sleep. Alcohol destroys sleep. I'm struggling with menopause. I need to have a drink to suit me. So everything that what people take alcohol for is what is creating. And this is why Professor David Nutt and all of this research showed that alcohol is the

world's most harmful drug, right, which I think is surprising and shocking for people. It is the world's most harmful drug because of that way. It is so wrapped up in society and so readily available. And I would also say, which I really want to come back on to, is that there is trillions of dollars, pounds, whatever you want to say, spent on making us not draw our attention to the truth about alcohol. I really hope you're enjoying this episode. And if you can, give us a follow. So how did you stop? Yes.

And what made you want to stop? In the journey, I started the meditation. That's when this started awareness. And I thought, you know, I want to. And what else was in that awareness? Well, I mean, my marriage wasn't great. You know, we had a baby and I was still living the broker life. I mean, I remember one Tuesday morning at 5 o'clock,

unable to find my keys. So I just slept on the doorstep. and my wife opening up the door at what, 6.30 in the morning with a six-month-old baby with her husband, asleep on the doorstep. Hello, Beaconsfield. So, you know, that is not very conducive to a successful marriage. Some people who live in certain environments would say, well, that's ridiculous. What kind of behavior would that be? So I was in that kind of environment where I was having all this grief from home.

It's just grief from home. Everyone gets it. And it was easier to go to the pub and say the train. was delayed, you know, rather than actually go home and face the drama, the anger, the fights, the whatever it was, and then get back on the train. Also, what's hitting me now, the story that you had just told is how many people will identify with that story, men and women. Totally.

And how sad it is when I, I'm assuming you're still with your wife. Jen, my lovely wife. Well, rather, she is still with me. That's just pretty right. Yeah, that how different your relationship is now that you've shifted all of that. We can come to that in a moment. So you're there. You've fallen asleep on the doorstep.

It's going downhill and alcohol is largely responsible. It's a big part. And, you know, we've been wrestling with it. And at one point, she said, it's me all the job. and luckily I chose her. And in the same sense, my wonderful boss at the time gave me a six-month sabbatical to travel around the world. And when he did, he said, but fix your marriage. A marriage is like a business, right?

It requires investment. It requires a lot of energy to keep it going and successful. And often there are problems and challenges and stressful. And if you are not investing energy in your marriage like your business, then I'm not surprised it's going to fail because your business would too. Are you still drinking at this point? Yes. What's your drinking like?

No job and getting on better with your wife. Is it calmed down? Yes. I mean, again, it was just social. It's just social fun stuff. So, you know, once or twice a week at weekend, have fun party stuff. On my 30th birthday, it was a little bit crazy. And we did a wine tour and it was a three-day extravaganza.

Okay. And the thing I love, I mean, I remember sitting on a little pier with a bottle of Jack on 10 o'clock the morning the next day. And that used to be my favorite time, right? Because all of the loopy-loose stuff comes out then. Everyone's got a little bit loopy. You've not had any sleep. Oh, after no sleep.

Oh, all the way through. Oh, God. Okay. And you're carrying on the next day. Wow. That used to be my fun time. Oh, God. Okay.

Just, yeah, yeah. So, but what I sort of later transpired or now, I understand is how much all of that fits ADHD like a glove. That all of this is rooted in the same thing. We'll talk about this a bit later, but it's all rooted in our central nervous system. It's all rooted in these behaviors and how it affects our brain. And then it leads on to why alcohol is really kryptonite for ADHD, but why so many people with mental or neurodivergence become problematic with drinking.

It's like three times more likely to have a problem with alcohol and drugs if you are ADHD. So, yeah. So you came back to the UK. So, yeah, we came back to the UK. The part of a little bit of my story that we missed out on is, you know, when I was younger, I really struggled with my mental health. I struggled to fit in. And at the age of 13, I had my first suicide attempt. And then 14, I tried properly.

and it was a bit of a miracle I survived in a moment of timing. And my parents were desperate. Sorry if I get emotional. My parents were desperate for me to see what they saw. I hope this is going to be difficult. And that was, in their eyes, that I was unique, I was special, I was gifted. But in the world, it wasn't seen like that. It was, you're of trouble, you're bad, you're naughty.

and it created this divide. And my dad had worked for child life. So he knew about trying to get children to find hope. He knew that the most important thing was to give them some form of hope because that lights the fire for their own survivor. And so in that, his idea was, you know, why don't you write a letter to somebody, somebody who inspires you and, you know, connect like that.

So I was like, I'll write a letter to Richard Branson. So I wrote a letter to Richard and I said lots of things, but, you know, I'm going to change the world one day. I'm looking forward to having lunch with you. I mean, this is a remarkable story because I wasn't really aware of your childhood. And obviously to navigate that to survive, which it sounds like you only just, did and then to go through all of that life to meet someone, fall in love, merely lose her, keep her. I mean, this is a miracle here. It is a miracle.

Someone's looking out for you. Yeah. She saved me. She saved me. If she hadn't been pulling back on those reins, I would have partied off into the distance. Would you say that it was like slowly committing suicide? Well, it is anyway. You'd had this attempt when you were 14, but here you were again, doing it all over again, but just very slowly.

This is what most people are doing. And if, you know, the suicide thing is right down at the end. Yes. But it's a sliding scale of self-deprecation, of self-destruction. Self-loathing. Yeah. Destroying self-worth, of destroying self-confidence. And the tools that we subconsciously use to convince.

continue to facilitate that journey. I think this will speak to so many people because when I got clean, it was like, I just hate myself. It's like, get clean or die. I hate myself so much. It was crystal clear that unless I did something. But you didn't have that massive thing. So you had this journey with your wife and then you were like, okay, I'm going to stop. How did you do that? So actually, just in a similar thing, there was a couple of things that happened to it. Obviously, there was pressure and there was this stuff and I wanted to be that and I wanted to change, approach my boss and I said, I'm thinking about taking a break from booze.

And he was like, what? You are committing commercial suicide if you stopped drinking. Wow, wow. I mean, so then I was like, right, I need to do something about Jen's anger. So I'm going to take an anger management program. So I took an online anger management program. And guess what? Guess what I found out?

I'm really angry. I found out I'm really angry. And I was like, wow, I've got so much anger. And on that discovery of that thing, it was a wonderful online program. It was a lot of exchange problems of forwards. It said the two biggest instigators, fire igniters of anger or alcohol and coffee. And I was like, oh, wow. Okay, well, it's a 90-day program. I'm going to drop them, both.

Ah, I thought you're going to say, I dock coffee. So you did both? So I did both for 90 days. I did coffee for 30 days. And then I did alcohol for 90 days in the beginning. And cleop a complete abstention. Yeah, complete abstention. Not 90 days was amazing. I mean, the lights on. But also what I saw was, oh my God, my numbers improved. And that's why. I was like, right, I need to carry this on. However, I did have a very significant challenge. And that is that we live in a world where you can be precluded if you don't drink alcohol. I had this in such a major way. People hated it if I didn't have a drink with them when I went out. Yeah. Yeah. I have

stood with a bunch of guys on a dad's sesh, big, big party going on. And the dad's role. standing around and they're like, right, boys, we're going to win the cricket competition this year. And they're like, yeah, we've really got to do it. Everyone's got it. Come on, we can do it. And one of the boys goes, we should invite John. He's the best player by far. And everyone's like, yeah, let's get John in this year. And then one guy pipes up and goes, yeah, but John doesn't drink. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, forget that. They would rather lose the cricket competition than they would invite John, who's the best player who doesn't drink. So in the industry, I that I would lose business if I didn't drink with some people.

And so this is where I had to start to step up my game. Few things. One, stealth drinking. This is lots of tactics, lots of tools. We actually teach people this. And when I tell people this, they go, you have to teach people to fake drink. Oh, yes.

Right? I know people that have done that. Yeah. Go to a bar early, tit the bum on 50 quid or whatever it is, 20, 20 quid, and say, whatever has, whatever has, happening, I'm drinking alcohol-free and you need to make it look like I'm drinking. Alcohol-free beer and a pint glass, back then it wasn't on tap or anything, right? They'd get Bex Blue. And so I would do all this, you know, if somebody buys you around,

have a sip. Don't like a sip, right? Go to the toilet, pour it away. Go to the other side of the bar, order yourself an alcohol-free one. Lots of tools and tips like that. And if you get away with the evening, maybe having a sip here and then, it was a win. Sometimes there are partners at home that you've got to do stealth drinking with because they feel left-out. or they feel like you're pointing a finger at them going, you've got a problem if you're not drinking. Let's talk about partners. Let's come on to it because this is important.

So you're teaching people to stealth drink. Yeah, I mean, this is no. Obviously, it's in effects. It's in industries. It's fascinating. I know. It's crazy. So it is real for many people. And people in high-powered roles where male-dominated industries, females, do you know, in our research published with Stirling University,

we surveyed peer pressure around the UK, right? How much peer pressure do you get? What kind of peer pressure is it? Who gives you the most peer pressure? Where is it from? The highest peer pressure in the entire country from any particular demographic is middle-aged women,

professional ladies in London by their bosses. Wow. Wow, crazy. It was like 60% of women felt like they, We're pressured to drink alcohol. And, you know, let's just talk about that, right? Peer pressure is not, come on, have a drink, have a drink. Peer pressure is, yeah, should we catch up with the guys later?

That's it. You don't even realize how in powerful and impactful it is. You know what? We should really go out for a drink sometime. Or, oh, God, that's a meeting first time with somebody. They've said drink, it's going to be alcohol. What do I do? It feels pressure, doesn't it?

To someone who's our own. Yeah. It's our own constructs in our own brain. And this is the thing that we help people understand as well is that so much of our drinking is perpetuated by that social conditioning. In fact, it's the vast majority of it, right? It's so readily available. It's expected by society.

It started off with billions and billions and billions of marketing dollars and pounds that created this whole social expectation and movement. So all of this creates a situation where we're expected to, drink and that is what the normality of society does, that's what everyone does. If we released that and we let go, and this is what we help people see, is that the vast majority of their feeling of peer pressure comes from themselves, right? They do it to themselves. And that actually, once you push past those early arts, right, and, you know, get past it, it actually evaporates very, very quickly, very easily. And then when people start to get into the routine, they're like,

this is actually really easy. It's easy for me to not drink now. And I think when you prove to the people that you're drinking or that want to drink with you and that you've got a bit of a funny thing and you're, when you prove that actually you are as much fun, you still do karaoke, you're still going to dance all night. In fact, you're going to be having more fun than the person that's been drinking all night. Indeed. People will realize that not drinking makes you as fun, if not better than everybody that is. A hundred percent. But it takes a while to get that message through. It does take a long while. And there's complications in there.

And, you know, sometimes it can, you know, you can feel lonely and it can feel like you're missing out. And it cannot be as exciting evening. I mean, come on. At 10, 30, 11, now people are starting to say the same thing over and over again. Yes, I know. And you're not drinking, you're like, I want to get out. And you don't stay till 12 or 1 or everything else. And there's groups of people who say, well, nothing good happens after 11 o'clock.

But some of that is fun and some of that is things. So there's a lot of complexity around it. And I think overall the fear of who am I if I choose to change my relationship with alcohol? Who am I? How do I deal with peer pressure? How am I going to do this? How am I going to switch off? How am I going to sleep? What am I going to do with my time? That fear is what keeps the vast majority of people stuck. And what everyone is saying on the other side is, I had no idea of the impact alcohol is having on me. And I wish I'd done it sooner. Well, couldn't you just quickly tell me about your program? So when you... Let's come on to that.

So through this, I took a break from alcohol. From there, I then... Andy was a broker with me. He had gone alcohol-free as well. We got together and we came up with this idea of one-year no beer, this challenge, this thing that you could do that you'd be proud of, like a tough mother. So we came up with this master plan of one-year no beer.

It was going to be a challenge. And in the beginning, it was all for free. Now, this just shows what a terrible businessman I am, because we sent it out to the world for free. I thought it was going to go viral. I actually invested hundreds of thousands of pounds of my own money, and I was trying to get it to go viral everywhere and go crazy. And it did. We had 20,000 people sign up in the first year. And I remember lying in bed next to my wife with a handwritten letter from a son saying, I've got my dad back.

And you're like, I can't believe this. I can't believe that something so simple as taking a break from alcohol could have such profound impacts on people's lives, their areas of life and everything else. And so this is where this obsession started to grow inside of me of like, I almost feel like I have a gift. many gifts, I'm kidding, a gift. The gift is that if I can use my words to convince someone who's regularly drinking alcohol to change their relationship with alcohol, then I can probably profoundly change their life. And I don't know how many tools or things out there that you have for that. No.

So then we started to build up this organization. It was still just a course. It was a program. It was a community, wonderful thing to lift off. And rather frustrated. I sent this tweet to journalist. ended up getting a 10-minute feature on BBC World News in over 200 countries. I mean, kind of unheard of for a business to get that kind of exposure.

Huge. A friend of mine was in Italy, and he called me up, and he said, it's a friend of a friend. And he said, Ruri, I've just seen you on the news. I think what you're doing is amazing. I'm meeting the Dalai Lama next week. Would you like to meet him with me? So I was like, okay, let me check my diary. So hopped over to Pisa.

Again, we were supposed to be somewhere else. this is another whole story, but I ended up being in the front row, which I shouldn't have been, amongst a whole bunch of kids. And there were kids asking him questions in front of thousands of people in Pisa. And in a moment, he paused them,

the Dalai Lama paused them like this. And he said, is there somebody who would like to ask a question here? And I went, me. And I was the only adult out of maybe 20 kids to be randomly standing there to ask him a question. And I say, hi, my name's Vrui, and we have been helping people all over the world change their relationship with

addictions using what Tibetan and Buddhist people have been using for centuries. What would you say to somebody who is wrestling with an addiction? And he said, sorry, one second, he said, I don't know to help people with their addictions. But I look to people like you. you who are doing good work in this world. How we help the world is we teach our children to feel their emotions. And this is his big thing. And we're going to come back on to how important that is for people and why that's intrinsically linked to our relationship with alcohol. When I stepped down off that stage, it was like a lightning bolt of purpose. I was like, this is it. This is why I'm on this freaking planet. So I went in Monday morning, handed in my notice. My boss said to me,

what? You mean, you can carry on doing it doesn't matter. But I was like, I can't do another day. I have to go and pursue this. So that really then put a lot more energy and focused into driving it. Then I started raising money. And this is another crazy thing about the work we are doing. Somebody said to me, well, why don't you see if there's an investor in your customer list? wrote a little letter to the customers. I was like, hey guys, you love you all, you're amazing. This is what I'm trying to do. I want to impact billions of lives. I want to change the conversation from problem to prevention, right? Will you support us? And I thought maybe I'd come into one or two emails. I came in the next day to 74 emails. We raised 1.1 million in five weeks just from our

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I am a massive fan. I love how they do all of this research and they give it all away for free. Over the years, I knew I was getting closer to Richard. And I knew that it was an important part for me for my dad. First of all, I heard that his photographer on Necker Island had signed up to the program. Then I heard that his water sports instructor.

And then one day I got a message from a very successful business owner who had met a networking event, best friends are Richard. I go down to Nettor all the time. Do you want to come down with me? And the organizer of this whole thing was like, I'm going to sit you next to Richard. You're going to tell this story. He's going to love the story.

You can face time your dad. This is going to be amazing. I was like, oh, my God, what a moment. I'm going to be their dad going, you brought me back from the brink. You gave me hope here. Anyway, sadly, the trip got cancelled. And because of COVID.

And so then it didn't happen. And then my dad died two months later. Yeah. God. And last year, Richard Branson was here opening his new hotel. And I thought, as you do, Fortune favors the brave. I'll just turn up. So I headed up there and standing in the parapet on the terrace,

looking out into the view on his own with nobody else around him. I mean, imagine how busy the guy and how plagued he is, is Richard Branson, staring at the view. So I'm like, here's your moment. Walk straight up. I said, I'm rury. And I said, can I tell you a story? And he said, okay, go on then.

So then I told him the story and about my dad and all of those things. And I obviously got emotional and he gave me a big hug. He was so nice about it. And he was so sorry. I'm really sorry that you didn't get to have that moment with your dad. But why don't you stay and have dinner with us tonight? And then maybe we can have that moment. And I facetal my mom, which was really amazing.

The thing about it was, it was about hope. My dad had that belief in creating hope. And that is what so many people are missing. Alcohol is hopelessness. Alcohol breeds hopelessness. It feeds all of that. And this is why this is why this whole thing makes me so passionate about helping people

because they don't realize what it's taking away. Yeah. They don't realize it's just scratching away at their life, gnawing away. It's also what the Dalai Lama said to you. Yeah. It's like the same. It's like everything was telling you.

The universe was telling you what to do. Alcohol is there to numb and switch off. That's, you know, people are like, fancy having a drink because they want to switch off. But you're switching off the noise. And inside the noise, yes, there's pain. Yes, there's suffering. Yes, there's shit you haven't done.

Yes, there's argument. with the wife, but so are these other voices. So are the opportunities to sit next to your boss at that moment that he decides to give you a pay rise. Staying up and having that conversation here. And that's the thing that people are missing out on. And that's why their lives, I know, can significantly improve. And we see it time and time and time again. Really, the major source of most of our desire to take the edge off comes from our past experiences as a child, usually between zero and seven. So between zero and seven,

we have not yet developed our prefrontal cortex. It is starting to switch on. The prefrontal cortex, that area behind your forehead, is used for morals, situational awareness, understanding, short-term, all sorts of things like that. And so when somebody shouts at you today, your prefrontal cortex goes, oh, that's somebody who hasn't slept well.

I hope they'll be all right. right? But as a child, you don't understand. You don't. And even when you're shut in your bedroom and left alone, as a young child, you think nobody's ever coming back. Watch a baby feel traumatized by that mother's right. So what we're starting to understand is that actually trauma is in the eye of the beholder and it's about the perception of the event. It's not that we were all abused. It's not that we were all beaten. If you all experienced the same event, you would all process it differently. Yes, exactly. It's about these difficult feelings, and we hard-coded some stuff about us. Having helped 100,000 members, over 100,000 members, but lots of people have used our free content, podcasts, and everything else.

So we're talking about a wide impact of millions of people around the world. Having helped millions of people reconsider or slash take a break from alcohol, we saw the same things again and again and again, is that people could take a break, but they would go back to problematic drinking. And that was my experience. And so I was like, we need to do something more here. We need to understand, can we help people control their drinking? Can we help people reduce all of that kind of stuff? So this is what sent me on a totally mission. I mean, working at the German neuroscience hospital, I've done brainaging,

I've done psychedelic therapy, different types of therapies. You name it, put myself under the hammer to try and understand my own relationship with alcohol, but not just alcohol, compulsion in general. Yes. Now, we know from society what drives compulsive behavior. We know in science today that what those things are. So instead of directing people for the attention of just stop drinking as the solution, why don't we help people with the things that are actually creating the problem in the first place?

That makes sense, right? Well, to me, as an addict, yes. Exactly. So when we look at the drivers, what are the drivers? We've touched on number one, right? the major source of our compulsive behavior, trauma, past experiences, etc. Number two, stress. Yes.

Okay. The significance of stress is this. Worked with wonderful women, Dr. Regina Sinha at Yale University, head of addiction research. 35 years studying addiction, 150 peer-reviewed studies. And she says that two years ago she turned around to Yale University's board and she said, I want to change the name of the department. And they're like, what, why? She said, I want to change it from Yale University's study for addiction to Yale University study for stress,

because addiction is just the outcome. Right. So this is how important stress is. Now, the thing about stress is, well, we live in the most stress time we ever have. We're completely inundated. I heard you say, back in, however, we used to take the information over one broad sheet in a week or whatever. And now we're doing that like every minute the same. It's overwhelming. I can't. And also my concentration levels, I can't, I'm struggling to. Massively overstimulated.

So what we have to understand here in part is that this is directly correlated to our central nervous system. Now, most of us have never been taught how to self-regulate. We've never actually looked at how stressed out we are. What we do is go, oh, I'm so stressed, I need to have a drink, right? Because that's the solution for stress, right? You get stressed out and you have a drink. Well, alcohol actually creates stress. It makes our stress coping.

It dilutes our stress coping mechanisms. And it increases cortisol production. So it makes stress so much worse, which what drives more of that feeling of inability to cope. I've had people come through the program. One amazing guy built a large business, a cybersecurity business. And he said, Ruri, I don't think I've ever had so many fires in my business, and I don't think I've ever been so calmer, right? And what is that to have the ability to handle your stress? So specifically with our central nervous system, we have parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.

Okay? Parra, think of parachuting down. My central nervous system is calming down. Sympathetic, fight or flight, cortisol. Cortisol is the main hormone that drives that fight or flight. Alcohol releases cortisol, but also increases cortisol production over time. Oh, wow. So, listen, this is really important.

If you are regularly consuming alcohol, you are consistently reducing your ability to deal with stress over time. So you handle less stress. You get more freaked out. You get stressed out by the kids. You get more snappy, more angry, and everything else. So when I talk to business owners, I talk to people who are trying to build business, be successful, create nice careers, whatever. it is, I say, looking forward right now, do you want to be able to handle more stress calmly, or do you want to continue to be reduced how much stress you can handle? Just looking

forward at the next few years. That is the conversation that people can attach to and go... And if you just ask somebody that, they'd be like, well, that's a no-brainer. No-brainer. You want to be able to handle more stress calmly. We'll stop drinking stress. Yeah. So I want to go back to one thing that we touched on, and let me know if there's other things. things you'd like to discuss before, but I'm so interested in the you binge drink, drank. Yes. But is it possible, you're talking about all the negative ways that alcohol can affect your

life, you know, is it possible to drink an amount of alcohol that will not do that with your stress or that can you teach people to drink sensibly? Or is it just, I mean, I have come to a point now. I can't remember that's how lovely it is, how many years. I'm sober, but I think it's something like 33, 33. I have finally got to the stage where I absolutely love not drinking, and I do not give a shit if somebody tries to peer pressure me. So I just go, I don't drink.

Yeah, exactly. Nice and easy. Deal with it. Perfect. Done. Yeah, easy. And I never want to drink. I would always, much rather drink ever.

ever. Like, is that a good place to be? Because it took me a long time to get there. I think it's the, so there's a few, there's things we must be super careful of. So number one, having had a very significant alcohol use disorder, you. Me. You. Then it changes areas of the brain.

And you having a drink again, we ignites those areas. Totally. And also, my willpower would go out of the window and I'd make catastrophic decisions around my life. Yeah. So first of all, alcohol. reduces willpower anyway because it dulls the prefrontal cortex, it stops the rationalizing. This is why perfectly successful people have a couple of drinks and then get in their car and drive, even though they know it's in low illegal. They wouldn't want to. So poor decision

making comes from just having a couple of drinks. So there's a few things to there. So first of all, we sent out the survey now over 40,000 people around the world and we asked a simple question, what would you like your relationship with alcohol to look like? To the wide audience out there, 6% said they like to stop drinking. Completely. 6%. Right. So if we talk about sobriety, if we talk about abstinence only, if we talk about

get sober, don't drink and everything else, you're talking to 6%. 6%. Yeah. Okay. Okay. 30% said they're fine as they are. The other 64% would like to be able to reduce their drinking. Sure. Now, in the beginning, we say, I came from a very standpoint of,

I firmly believe that anyone can control their relationship with alcohol. Now, this is a very polarizing concept. I believe, under the right circumstances, with the right changes and the right work, through neuroplasticity, changing environments, all of the 10 core drivers that we understand, if you identify and change those things, I believe you can. Now, I want to believe that, because that suggests that we have a solution for addiction that isn't just a pill, okay, that we have a self-empowered way that can put ourselves into a place where just because we can't stop at one with alcohol, we have an addictive

personality, we stop alcohol and then pick up another addiction. That is not helping people. No. So I believe that addiction is solvable and that it comes down to these things. So that's the first most important thing. The second thing is we have to take people from the understanding where we are. So let's look at the 10 core drivers. Trauma, stress, emotional regulation, environment, meaning and purpose. Lack of meaning, purpose is a huge driver of compulsive behavior. Mental health, when we look at each one of those and we look at the individual and we say, wow, really significant childhood trauma, major driver, lots of stress, toxic environment. They are in an alcohol-saturated town, in a village, everybody drinks, everyone around some drinks, the pressure is huge.

When you look at all of those things, you say, well, no, you can't control your drinking. But it's not because of some disease. It's not because of some thing, okay, your brain may be different. You may be neurodivergent, which drives up compulsive again on mental health. But that's just one of the factors, right? So what we're saying is, really importantly, is that if we go and do the work on these things, you can get to that place, right? And really importantly, when we go through that journey of making those changes,

the vast majority of people realize their lives are far better without it. So we've just done some research. We are not yet published. So interesting. It is fantastic results, huge statistical. results that we will be publishing in the next few months, peer-reviewed, on what we are doing. We're talking about more than half of people 18 months later choosing to be abstinent. A hundred percent of people come to our program looking for control, right?

And so... Those are miles better statistics than any statistics that I've heard of any place ever. But that's not even talking about the people who are drinking reduction. It's not like they've been told they mustn't. It's a choice that they've been... I hear all the time is people saying, I just don't even want. I just have no interest.

But I think that is the difference. Yeah. And you've made me really have a bit of a light bulb moment about my own life here. That when I stopped drinking, I was told stop drinking or die. Like I'd gone there going, these are the two options that I have. Stop drinking or die. But when, so I was so frightened of dying that I really did that. And I stuck to it.

And I stuck to the program and I was really good. but I was being forced, not forced. I chose to go to the meetings and I chose to put the work in and I did lots of work and I worked on all of the things that we talked about. Yes. You talked about all the triggers that I had many of. Yes. And when I got to a point in my life where all of this work that I had done

had got me to such a happy place and such a full place where in my head I sort of thought, I wonder if I could drink again. I chose not to because I am in such, if so, somebody had waved a magic wand, I might not be a person that would addictively, but I don't need to find out because I love not drinking. Yeah, exactly. I know that the gifts. Well, what you've just encapsulated is so important. Let's put Davina, what you called as an alcoholic, in the room next to you right now. And let's ask everybody here. I mean, it makes me want to cry. Let's ask everybody here the difference between you two. Come on. Yeah. Right?

your environment, your meaning and purpose, this, what you're doing here, your friends, how much love you are, your self-worth, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So do I believe that you could? Absolutely. No question.

And the thing is that because you come from that place, because you come from that place of I don't want to. Why would you? Why would you entertain the question? Why would you? And I think this is what we mostly help people realize is the truth. is that every single sip of that drink is taking, let me just take a step back here, inside all of those drivers, right, meaning and purpose, challenge, environment,

mental, good mental health, or everything else. The truth is that we help you see that this is everything that you want, everything that you want, to be happy, to be healthy, to be successful, to have contribution, to leave a legacy, to be running around healthily with your grandkids in the garden, right? Everything that you want at your core, true to yourself, is actually being taken away by alcohol. And that's the truth. It's just a subtractor. So when you come to that place and this vision is so clear, how often do you want to drink? Yeah. Never.

So, yeah. That's easy for people. This, like, literally been one of the most brilliant eye-opening, heart opening. like, I mean, it's, I feel like it's, I agree with you. I am, I call myself an amplifier. And I feel like you just need amplification because this message needs to be everywhere. Yeah. Really. That is, yeah, that is it. I, I want to make a call out to that because I want to share huge gratitude to you. Let's talk about in numbers. So I don't know what the listenership is of here. But what percentage of people will take action and take a break? I started to crunch some of the numbers, you know, on the downward impact.

So, you know, calories saved. Alcohol, not drunk. Money saved. Marriages kept together. Children who have their parents actually really with them and present or just not abusive. Less road rage, less suicide. majority of suicides are under the influence. I mean, we could go on for hours about the real negative impact of alcohol is so huge. And this conversation will, because every time it does,

when I went on Rich's podcast, I had thousands of messages from people and still do. Oh, it was from listening to the podcast that I decided to stop drinking and it's changed my life. And I think that that is, it's, it's, the conversation out there is, if you have a problem, don't seek help. And the conversation I'm having is you don't realize it, but alcohol is costing you way more than you realize, and it's going to take you hardly anything to figure out if I'm wrong or not. And if you take, if you're regularly consuming alcohol and you take a break and you don't get any benefits, please let me know because you will be the first person in now over 10 years and helping millions of people change their relationship with alcohol.

be quite interested because at the beginning when you were telling me your story about how it all started and I kept replacing the word alcohol with drugs. Yeah. And I think you could do the same thing with food. We do. Okay. Yeah. So the program now, our complete control program, we address all compulsive behavior.

They are predominantly the same sources. Some of the compulsions operate in different ways. So pornography is an example. is very different because the seeking is often the reward. And again, the reward happens very quickly. So there's more, you know, neurological complexity. I think about pornography as an addiction. Yeah.

It's a modern day one, isn't it? Because of online and how accessible. All compulsive behavior is a seek to soothe, is a seek to numb. So we want to help people address that. We recently started, you know, working with some corporates, a corporate program. And we help the company see that the cost of trying to fix the damage is so much greater than coming at it from a preventative conversation. Right? Yeah.

And, you know, so as an example, we take people through an eight-week journey. We use some really cool tech. So we put one device on that remotely monitors their central nervous system. We show them minute by minute whether they're in sympathetic or parasympathetic. We teach them about stress. We show them how stressed out they are. most people don't realize how stressed out they are. Most people don't realize they're not even getting recovery at night.

I mean, now you are dealing with all sorts of compulsions. Predominantly focused on alcohol. Yeah, absolutely. But when we come into a corporate environment, we have to be prepared to deal with whatever comes up. And the thing about it is that most people avoid this in its entirety, certainly with their corporate, right? They're not going to go through an alcohol program with their company

because they don't want to know that. So it's just a performance and health-optimized. program. It's all about teaching them to handle higher levels of stress. It's all about self-regulation and the nervous system. It's in the background and privately with the coaches, it's about trauma. The trauma is huge. And the thing is, all of these driven people, they're driven by trauma. And lots of them don't realize. You're like, oh, I had a perfectly happy childhood. And I'm like, I had a big fear. Leave it with me for a few minutes. I had a big fear that get rid of my trauma, I won't be good anymore at what I do.

That is always a fear. You're like, do I lose my drive? So far not. I've done so much work into the identification of it. I think it takes away the raspyness and the sharpness, right? The self-destruct explode, the massive anger, the huge, and I think you curtail all that stuff by processing and doing the work. and things like that.

I certainly found the more I worked on myself and, like, helped soothe my childhood trauma, I found that actually all of the things that that had created that were good in me, like empathy or my drive still there. Yeah, yes, exactly. Exactly. You're still empathic. You're still very connected to that part. And you're less hedonistic from having done the work.

where's the downside of that? Yeah, yeah. Right? And I feel for people because I hear them all the time, especially men, calling all out of you guys there. But I don't mean to be sexist. I'm just predominantly men, just refusal to deal with emotions. You know, never been trained, never just absolutely packed down.

And furiously running away from that. And, you know, when you get them into that conversation and a guy who says, well, you know, I've had a perfectly good childhood, you know, absolutely, parents were never there, but perfectly good. And you're like, you're like, well, you know, I understand and all of that kind of stuff. And then they get on a call with our team. And it's such a gentle peeling of the onion.

I want to explain something really important about this about what we are now understanding about trauma. Is that if you look at the traumatic event and maybe it wasn't even that traumatic, it was you dancing in a pink tutu in front of the TV. It was the feeling you felt. Yes. So the feeling of shame got packed down. Yes. And we pack down these emotions.

We've been taught in the society. Keep these emotions pack down, pat down, pat down, pat down. We use alcohol to do that. We use being busy to do that. So guess what? All the busy, very driven people are so busy packing down this stuff. Just avoid, avoid, avoid. So what we now know is that sitting and talking to people about the experience of child

is not really the solution because they can talk about that moment. They might get the feeling. It's all about the feeling. So Bessie van der Kohl, Peter Levine, they work on somatic work. And this is about linking to the feeling. What does shame feel? That shame, what does it feel like? What shape is it? Where is it now? Was it moving? And that is actually processing the emotion. So this sounds a bit fluffy, but we teach people probably for the first time in their lives to actually process emotion. And that's what the Dalai Lama said to me. You know,

and that is something that we've, we've never been given. We've never been given. We have not been taught. We have not been taught how to deal with stress significantly or given the right tools to do that. We've never been taught the skill of learning to deal with our emotions, our past experiences. So we're in the game, not for giving people pills and quick fixes, but for taking them on the journey, giving them the tools to fix themselves. So, Ruri, if I was going to say to you, out of everything that we've talked about today, if you wanted to kind of highlight, say, five things that you wanted people to take home, what would you want to say?

I think number one is that if you are regularly consuming alcohol, then it is costing you way more than you realize. It is costing you your dreams, your goals, your happiness, your health, your men, mental health. And you don't even realize that. I think the second thing that is really important is that think of it as a life not lived, right? And that is that what if, what if this thing of giving a shot of changing my relationship with alcohol could be the thing that lets me live the life I want to live? How amazing would that be, right? And that is the situation with so many people. It's there for you.

Stop numbing. Go for it, right? This could profoundly not just change your life, but the trajectory of your loved ones. We were talking about leading by example, showing up for others. The best way for you to help your friend who's drinking too much, your child, your parent is for you to go first in.

That's for leading by example. And then I think the thing is, in all that, if you've tried to have a break from alcohol, you've maybe done dry January before, you've maybe taken a break, and you keep finding it comes back, you're not broken. You don't have a problem. You just have not yet learnt the skill. And if you come to our website, you can go to, well, say one yearno beer.com, go to Devina. All the resources will be there. So there is the, am I in control quiz?

Anyone can take that. They'll understand where they are in terms of their level of compulsion. and they'll get a really great understanding of their drinking behavior and what they need to do to change it. I wanted to mention about anyone who is going through the menopause. I would love to support. I know you're passionate about that. I'm very. So it's very difficult for me to differentiate between who of your audience has the menopause or not. So if you are going through the menopause and you would like some support, go to one-year-nobear.com forward slash divina,

and you will get access to our program for free. Great. So we'd like to support anyone through that. Thank you. That would be amazing. Completely. Thank you. And other than that, again, enormous gratitude for having me on and sharing this message

and together, your platform, this message, you know, we're going to change some lives. So thank you. I'd like to say thank you to you, actually, for finding another way, you know, for breaking the mold and possibly having a quite unpopular opinion in some arenas, but being brave and sticking with it because it's changing people's lives. And thank you very much. I've loved meeting you. Yeah, amazing.

And your dad, I loved you showing me your dad that meant a lot to me. Thank you. Thank you. Love you. Love you too. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Laurie.

Thanks.