Dhru Purohit Show - The True Impact of Alcohol in Your Life And How to Break Free for Better Health

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi everyone, Drew Prode here. It seems as if the health experts everywhere over the last couple years especially have been speaking out about the harms of alcohol on our brains and bodies. I've talked about it as well too, right here on this podcast. And cutting down on drinking or avoiding it altogether is getting more and more popular, especially amongst young people. But for some people, living a low or non-alcoholic lifestyle can come with some challenges. Whether it's for societal or social or emotional reasons, just pumping the

Starting point is 00:00:30 breaks right away on drinking may not be as easy as it sounds, which is why I want to share a little piece of a conversation that I had with Rory Fairbarns. Rory is the founder and CEO of one year no beer and a leading figure in the health and wellness space. Due to the success of his community-based approach to behavior change around alcohol, he was awarded great British entrepreneur of the year for Scotland and Northern Ireland in 2020. And one year no beer was also named the spectator's economic innovator of the year in the UK. So Rory is known for his passionate advocacy for healthier living and he's inspired over 100,000 people worldwide to reassess their relationship with alcohol and to strive to become the best version of themselves. I love Rory's approach

Starting point is 00:01:14 because it's not about shame or restriction. It's about freedom and understanding the real drivers behind our need to numb out with alcohol. So I'm featuring this segment here. Let's dive into it with my conversation with Rory Fairbarns. You know, you mentioned that alcohol is this number one toxin inside of our body. There's no essential benefit from it. And there's all these different ways that it makes our body say, ouch, so to speak, long term, from everything to women who drink. I think the stats are more than three or four drinks a week regularly,

Starting point is 00:01:52 have an increased risk of breast cancer that you were mentioning previously, to all the other elements that you're mentioning. It's association with weight gain, cholesterol, etc. And on top of that, you also just feel like when you drink on a regular basis. So if alcohol is so toxic and if you regularly feel like and every person who's been in a place in time in their life who's drinking regularly has said, I want to stop. Why has it become so hard for them to actually not. stop or not be able to take a break. What's going on there? Okay, 100%. Just before we dive into the great big world of peer pressure,

Starting point is 00:02:37 which is where we're going with that exact question, I want to just quickly back to something you say, which is important. You said there is no benefit to drinking, and I'm going to just change that slightly. I should have said physiological. Yeah, well, physiological benefit, but the truth is, there are lots of benefits to drinking alcohol, right? Alcohol is actually really successful at switching our bloody brain. off? Have you seen the crazy world we live in out there? Have you seen how stressed out we are, how our devices are pinging at us, our central nervous systems are absolutely an overdrive. We've never been more stimulated, more stressed, more, I mean, come on, the feelings of overwhelm,

Starting point is 00:03:16 of not really contributing as well as we could. They're all huge. And alcohol's brilliant is switching all that stuff off. Next minute, you're in fun land. And we can't sit here and say that alcohol isn't fun. I mean, we've probably in this room, right? We've had some of our funniest nights from alcohol. So there are benefits to drinking alcohol. If there weren't, well, nobody would be drinking it, right? The issue, the biggest issue is the trade-off is not really being looked at, right? The benefit versus the amount you pay, it's way, way greater. How much you have to pay? And there's this great phrase that drinking alcohol is stealing happiness from tomorrow. And it's not just tomorrow. It's the next day and the next day in reality. And as you get older,

Starting point is 00:04:01 it's the next day and the next day. So at some point, we have to evaluate that trade-off and say, how often do I actually want to do that? Now, you ask that really, really important question. If it is so toxic, if it is so harmful to us, if it does make us all feel so terrible after drinking it, why is it so difficult to change your relationship with it? And this primarily comes down to peer pressure, right? This comes down to this social expectation that this is what we do with alcohol. So if you look at alcohol and the history of alcohol, then it was used as a social elixir, right? It was about getting people together and feeling that sense of community. And over many, many decades, the alcohol industry has spent trillions of dollars finding ways to market alcohol to

Starting point is 00:04:51 greater and wider situations and moments. Happiness, celebration, mummy wine time, sport, whatever it is. It just got reassociated and reassociated and reassociated. And what happens when you spend trillions of dollars on marketing to a society is that society takes that over. It becomes ingrained. It becomes expected. So inside our peer pressure is something really powerful. And that is this sort of innate tribalism. So a lot of us grow up. Sounds like you didn't, but I would grow up, that alcohol is just ingrained in absolutely everything. And so we start to build those neural pathways and those beliefs, and we have them in our head. The peer pressure of society becomes something that you actually create on yourself.

Starting point is 00:05:42 And often, often, I'm sure lots of people listening to this or watching this will resonate that they can go into the atmosphere and immediately feel triggered that they need to have a drink. Nobody said anything to them yet. Nobody said, are you and why are you not drinking? But they're already going, oh, I need to have a drink because otherwise I'm going to be the weirdo who's not drinking, right? It's inside us. And it has been repeated and repeated and repeated. And the brain puts on autopilot what we repeatedly do, what we repeatedly see. That's how it operates.

Starting point is 00:06:12 So when we try to change our relationship with alcohol, what a lot of people do is they say, right, I'm going to stop drinking. And in that moment, they say, okay, I'm going to avoid my social circle because I don't want to go out there where everyone else is. And what happens in that moment is that they actually become more disconnected. And when you become disconnected, right, well, that drives us back. We can't be like that. Unless you're a sociopath, you can't be disconnected. So again, the only way to feel connected is for you to go back to the tribe. And the tribe drinks. And so this is what so many people do. They take a break from Jai Janury, and then next minute they wonder why they're drinking like they were before. And that's because they've just immersed themselves back into that sense of tribalism. So in essence, our drinking is very, very tribal.

Starting point is 00:07:02 It's very socially ingrained. And I think slowly over decades, I've been at this message for almost 10 years now. And now, you know, people when I started were like, oh, wow, this is so zeitgeist that you're coming into it, but not really. And even now, you know, sobriety movements are alcohol-free alternatives are available. It's more widely available in bars. It's never been as easy, right, as it ever has to choose not to drink of an occasion. But we've still got a long, long way to go where somebody who's choosing not to drink feels absolutely no peer pressure and feels completely included alongside somebody who is choosing

Starting point is 00:07:45 to drink. We have a long way to go. You know, you talk about choosing to drink, choosing not to drink. And that are, those are sort of two, those are part of the spectrum of different ways of sort of having a relationship with alcohol. Some people say, I'm never going to drink or I never drink. Some people are sober. They've gone through the 12-step program. And some people feel that, hey, I don't have a problem.

Starting point is 00:08:12 It's a regular part of my life, right? What is your relationship with alcohol today? Which is not necessarily what you're advocating for the people who are listening. I just want to give context here of your relationship so that we can add it to the spectrum of essentially options or ways of being that people might have with alcohol. Quick break to shout out to one of my all-time favorite sponsors, Maui, Nui, and their venison jerky sticks. These are a staple for me.

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Starting point is 00:12:39 I know I'll have disrupted sleep. I know I'm going to feel more anxious, less productive, more tired, all of those things the next day. And when I have a large contribution to take to the world and I'm feeling aligned with my meaning and purpose and what I do every day, I just don't want to feel like that. Equally, if I want to go to Vegas or Ibiza and let the wheels come off, I can do that too. That's no problem. There's no judgment there, but I just wouldn't choose to do it very often. And what I really discovered, so, you know, for me to put and to where my relationship with alcohol was, I never was what somebody might say is alcoholic or alcoholism. We don't use those words anymore because they specifically identify the disease model.

Starting point is 00:13:26 We use in the scientific community, we use alcohol use disorder. And so you absolutely, I had alcohol use disorder because I was drinking heavily, most weeks. And, you know, for me, as an oil broker, lunch could start at midday and finish at 6 o'clock in the morning. And I might do that a couple of times a week. Not every week, but that's just kind of, it was very, very heavy drinking culture. And then I took a break from alcohol. And first of all, it was 90 days. I couldn't believe how good I felt, the clarity, the energy, it was just amazing. And I decided to go on for a year. That year was transformational, you know, transformation of my life, just just amazing years. It's something that, you know, the name of my company is one year no beer,

Starting point is 00:14:12 OIMB. It's something that we highly recommend to people. It's like, you know, maybe you want to start with the couch to 5K to begin with. That's the 28 day. Then you might want to try the 90 day. And really, doing a year off is transformational for your relationship with alcohol. And all of our programs today will always recommend that. The longer you take as a break, the more chance you have of fundamentally changing your relationship with it. But after a year, I was like, well, I never wanted to stop forever. That wasn't me. Also, I was that type of person where if you said to me, no, you cannot do this all the way through my childhood, I would say,

Starting point is 00:14:49 fuck you, I'm doing it anyway, especially to my parents. And so I knew that that was going to cause an issue. So I decided to go and have a drink again. And I called up some friends and I said, right, you know, I'm going to have some drinks after a year. Let's go to the rugby. And I went to the rugby and, you know, get in there and all the noise and everything else. And I get to the bar and it's like five people deep, you know, one of those. And I think, f*** this.

Starting point is 00:15:16 I'll order two. So I get two pints. And then, of course, you know, the evening carries on like that. Absolutely past it. Following day, throwing up in the toilet with my daughter beside me crying and my wife storming out the door. And this is when I realize something really profound. abstinence does not equal control. I've just done a year not drinking and I don't have control. And so that's what kind of changed the direction for me entirely. I kind of went down this route of

Starting point is 00:15:46 saying, well, is control possible? What is it to have control? How do I get there? And I mean, probably over a good eight years, I did another year alcohol-free and then after that year I started to just occasionally drink. And I started to really dive into the science behind this. Now, we know from science what drives compulsive behavior. We've known for decades. And yet, it seemed to be that the conversation out there was either you're drinking problematically or you're not drinking. It was just, you know, either you've got a problem or you don't. It just seems so black and white. And I was like, why isn't there a middle area? Why can't people go from drinking problematically? to drinking less.

Starting point is 00:16:34 It turns out, right, that there is this incredible intervention out there in the world globally. It's the most successful intervention at taking people from alcohol use disorder to consuming alcohol in a, or not having alcohol use disorder. Do you want to know what that intervention is?

Starting point is 00:16:52 I cheated because I know your content really well, so I'm not going to steal your punchline, but I'll let you say it. Good. It's time. Time. So most people grow. out of alcohol use disorder. So if we can grow out with it with time, then how do we shorten that

Starting point is 00:17:08 down for people? And what are the other factors? And so this is really what now, well, my life's work is about, is helping people understand that alcohol is not, alcohol is not the problem. Alcohol is how you're treating your problems. That there are underlying drivers in your life that are causing this compulsion to happen, this desire to numb out and take the air. edge off and that when you actually take a minute and address those underlying things, you will have a healthier relationship with alcohol. I know you're a huge fan of the work of Dr. Gabor Mate. Yes.

Starting point is 00:17:42 He's been on this podcast a couple of times. I'm a huge fan as well too. And everybody knows his powerful quote that he always says, which is ask not why the addiction, ask why the pain. Yeah. And as related to alcohol, alcohol is one vehicle that people use to regularly numb the pain in their lives. When you do surveys, you talk to your audience, what are the top things people are using to alcohol, to self-medicate for? Well, I don't think that people are conscious.

Starting point is 00:18:21 They're not conscious. They're not conscious that they have childhood trauma, and that's why that they're seeking a second drink or a third drink. Let's categorize some drinkers for a second. got the I can't stop at one drinker, right, who maybe could easily do a week or two and is like, well, that's fine. But usually when I have one or two, it goes on to binge drinking. And then binge drinking is really interesting because it kind of causes these more, more public issues, right? It causes more, well, literally public issues, you know, vandalism and rioting and all sorts of stuff like that, which is why the UK has been changing its relationship with alcohol since 2004, because it's a very binge-drinking culture.

Starting point is 00:19:02 And then where you've got Germany, which is just steadily climbing, they don't have that binge culture. They have that daily drinking. They just have a beer with things. So both of those have been proven to be as harmful. Not exactly as harmful, right? But if you take the same amount of units drunk in one session of binge drinking and the same amount of units drunk through the week,

Starting point is 00:19:22 the same amount of harm is showing up physically and mentally in that individual 30 days later, okay? So one is not better than the other. So I think those two types of drinkers are not aware that it's childhood trauma, or let's just change perhaps the childhood trauma word and talk about our ego. Okay? So during zero to seven, we have not yet switched on our prefrontal cortex. It is developing. The prefrontal cortex is used for rational decision making, making sense of the world, our morals, all sorts of things like that.

Starting point is 00:19:57 So today, when somebody shouts at you or cuts you off at the road, you go, oh, that's somebody who hasn't slept well, I hope. But as a child, if somebody shouts at you, you don't understand. You can't rationalize. So you feel some intense emotions, and you pack those down. And meanwhile, you also make some decisions about yourself. Those might be, I'm not worthy, or I'm not good enough, or I'll never amount to anything, or I can't be on my own, or I need somebody to save me, which was mine, or I can't trust men, I can't trust women, I can't trust my mother, whatever it is. So we create these patterns in our brain based on these experiences and they start to form our ego. And as our ego develops through our life, it creates this picture of how we view the world. And what we don't realize is that a lot of our drinking is actually a direct

Starting point is 00:20:55 respondent to this. And there's two kind of ways for that is, A, the feeling that it creates, I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, that feeling is an interesting body of research, I would say, that shows that our ego, our subconscious, is actually trying to create situations to prove our belief true. So if you have this belief that you're not worthy, you're going to create situations to prove to yourself that you're not worthy. And that might be entering into a higher league where you weren't quite accepted, only for them to say, I'm sorry, you're not accepted this time,

Starting point is 00:21:33 for you to go, the ego will be like, told you, you're not worthy. And these little patterns are going on all the time. And so not only is that the pattern that's created, but it creates the feeling. And the feeling is very difficult to handle. Most of us have not learned to regulate our emotions. In fact, we haven't even learned to acknowledge our emotions.

Starting point is 00:21:54 Far from it, we've usually been taught to run away from them as fast as possible and pack them down, especially as kids, right? Come on, pick yourself up. Stop crying. They're there. So this packs down those emotions, those difficult feelings, and that's why we reach for something. And so that happens, that is the most common part for people's habitual drinking or reaching for something. And it's not just drinking.

Starting point is 00:22:18 I mean, it's Netflix, doom scrolling through social media, porn. gambling, you name it. Shopping addictions. I can't stand the feeling, therefore, I need to take the edge off with some kind of action. Work addiction. The world's most acceptable addiction, but it's still the same thing. You know, we coach lots of very, very driven, very successful business owners, high achievers, celebs, billionaires on the program. And something that's extremely common is a, you know, often they resonate with being ADHD, ADD, neurodial divergent, and we can talk a bit more about that and why that's important. But also that, you know, they're constantly busy, constantly busy, constantly busy. Well, busyness is a great

Starting point is 00:23:00 way to avoid feeling. So work addiction is driven from this avoidance of these difficult feelings of the past. And this is where it creates that negative energy that then you need something to cope. And so what we sort of help people do is understand that this is primarily driven by your central nervous system. It's primarily driven by you not being able to regulate and finding enough calm and peace during the day that you desiring a drink or needing to take the edge off is not a foregone conclusion. I have this little, a few things, really. One is what we want to do is sort of teach people some very simple math. The math is this. A stressed out central nervous system, which does not get any recovery during the day, will always require numbing in the evening.

Starting point is 00:23:47 That stressed out central nervous system drives this hyperactive energy, right, which then creates this busy brain that you just can't switch off. I just can't switch off my brain. I can't switch it off. I'm going to use alcohol. And the problem with using alcohol is it must be literally the world's worst tool. You know, if you were to market it as the product it is, you say, okay, so you're struggling with a really busy brain. Great. Have this substance here. What it will do is it will knock out your brain for 15 minutes, and then it will start to decline pretty quickly, so you'll need to take it again, and then you'll need to take it again and take it again. And the more you take, the more you will feel it again the next day.

Starting point is 00:24:26 And you'll feel it 10 times worse the next day. Would you actually take that? I mean, it would just, it wouldn't be a successful product. But this is how we are using alcohol. And it's so unhelpful to us in actually handling that situation. So, yeah, it's a lot about calming down that. central nervous system. I hope you found this conversation as eye-opening and as empowering as I did.

Starting point is 00:24:53 Whether you're someone who drinks regularly, socially, or occasionally, or not at all, Rory's message is a powerful reminder that we can take back control of our health and our habits without guilt, without shame, without giving up connection or joy. When we learn to regulate our nervous system, address our pain, and get curious about our behaviors, we open the door to real transformation. You know, if this episode with Rory resonated with you, make sure to check out the full-length episode in the show notes below. And if you want, you can also share this conversation with a friend who's working on redefining or changing their relationship with alcohol. Until next time,

Starting point is 00:25:26 thanks for tuning in.

Dhru Purohit Show - The True Impact of Alcohol in Your Life And How to Break Free for Better Health

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