Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #148 BITESIZE | The Surprising Benefits of Taking a Break From Alcohol | Andy Ramage

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Starting point is 00:00:51 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More, bite-sized, your weekly dose of optimism and positivity to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 85 of the podcast with performance coach and author Andy Ramage. Andy's co-fan of the habit changing program One Year No Beer that invites people to try 28, 90 or 365 days alcohol free. In this clip, he explains why taking a tactical break from alcohol could bring a surprising host of benefits and how his own experience changed his life. Let's rewind back a few years, I don't know when it was now, when you started that journey of

Starting point is 00:01:57 re-examining your relationship. Yeah, for me it was very clear, it was in my mid-30s. I'd sort of reached that conventional place where happiness apparently resides. I had the car and the big job and the lovely family and all those type of trappings. And I remember reaching this place thinking, I feel a bit average. I think like many people, like a five out of 10, I was overweight, stressed out, maxed out, unfit, unhealthy. And as part of that process, I decided to leave my job as a broker to start a new firm because I was convinced there has to be more to life than this. You know, when I looked around the rest of the city, I saw people that were

Starting point is 00:02:34 quote unquote more successful than me, broken bodies, broken minds, broken homes. And I was like, I don't aspire to that. What's the point? I want to do something different. I want to come back. I want to build a foundation of wellness and vitality and from there, peak performance. So I had nine months off, which was fantastic gardening leave. I traveled the world. I trained for the best of the best, co-founder of NLP, Rich Roll, Sarah Campbell, the world champion free diver, just to learn everything I could about wellness and vitality. And when I came back to start this new business, I was going to meditate and I came back to start this new business, you know,

Starting point is 00:03:05 I was going to meditate and I was going to eat salad and stuff. You know, I was in that cup of mindset, but I was totally inconsistent. I was inconsistent in the way that I exercised. I was inconsistent in the way that I showed up in the office. This inconsistency was everywhere. And finally the penny dropped. I thought it's alcohol. Was there a particular moment? I mean, you've mentioned when the penny dropped, I thought, it's alcohol. Was there a particular moment? I mean, you've mentioned when the penny dropped, but I don't know, you know, banker culture from what I know of some of my friends from university who've gone down that road, and just from seeing what I've seen, alcohol, socialising, fuels a lot of that industry from

Starting point is 00:03:41 what I can tell. Oh, absolutely. But what's interesting since I've got into this, it's not just banking or broking that I was in or trading, it's media. You know, it's in all these different, it's in insurance, it's in very lots of, it's quite ubiquitous how widespread the use of alcohol is to entertain and socialize and do all those things. And as you said, it's the elephant in the room. It's the one thing that no one ever really questions. They question their diet and they question their meditation. They question the way they move their body and they sort of forget to actually look at this thing underneath, which is alcohol that's tripping people up. So for me, there wasn't ever a big sort of never again moment. It was just a slow realization of, I think this is holding me back. I was suspecting that

Starting point is 00:04:21 alcohol was preventing me being my best self. It was preventing me getting from that five out of a 10 in terms of happiness or wellness to a seven or an eight and sort of spoiler alert, it absolutely was. Yeah. So why should someone who's listening to this podcast, why should they start to question their relationship with alcohol, do you think? I think everyone should just take a break just run that experiment because you might not know how much it's holding you back until you remove it because i think it's things like consistency it takes away that consistency even if you're only drinking once

Starting point is 00:04:54 or twice a week and just to set my stall out i am talking to the middle lane drinkers i class myself as a middle lane drinker and what i mean by that is someone that drinks moderately sometimes averagely sometimes heavily which is basically everyone you by that is someone that drinks moderately, sometimes averagely, sometimes heavily, which is basically everyone. You know, that is the group that I'm talking to, because I think for too long, there's been this black and white message around alcohol. It's either you have a full blown problem or you don't. There's no in between. I think it needs to be this gradient where we think about alcohol as a whole spectrum. And everyone who drinks is on that gradient. At one end, it's the very moderate drinker once a month. The other end is the problematic drinker. And most people spend all of their time oscillating somewhere in the middle, don't they? I think

Starting point is 00:05:33 they're average, sometimes moderate, sometimes heavy. That's the group of people I'm talking to. If someone had told you six years ago, hey, Andy, look, you're drinking too much, right? You're going to, in six years time, have not touched a drop of alcohol for six years ago, hey, Andy, look, you're drinking too much, right? You're going to, in six years time, have not touched a drop of alcohol for six years. You probably would have laughed in their face and thought, what are you talking about? Oh, absolutely. I mean, so the goal for you was never to stop drinking. And I think that's very powerful. So you never planned to completely stop drinking. And I think that's what you're offering people, isn't it? It's not about giving up necessarily. It's almost as if you're trying to say,

Starting point is 00:06:10 hey, look, let's give it a go. Why don't you see how you feel when you don't drink? And is that all you're asking people to do? Exactly. That's it. In a nutshell, I choose not to drink because why would I? But prior to that, I stopped and started many times. I slipped up and stumbled and fumbled. And just so you know, the co-founder of One You Know Beer, Ruri Fairbains, he drinks every now and again in full control on his own terms. So I'm all about people drinking if they wish to. But what I really want everyone to do is to run the test, run the test and see the results that you get. And if you feel amazing, keep going. I talk about people doing a split test on themselves or an A and B test effectively.

Starting point is 00:06:49 A, you with alcohol right now, gather your stats, you know, BMI, weight, resting heart rate, all those wonderful physiological stats. And then the subjective stats, productivity, time, motivation, stress, your relationships, run the test for 28 days. That's all you've got to do. I prefer 90 days because I think you get better results. And when you think about it, your relationships, run the test for 28 days. That's all you've got to do. I prefer 90 days because I think you get better results. And when you think about it, 90 days, a 90-day break from alcohol over the average drinking career is about 0.49%. Everyone's got 0.49% just to run the test. And if you get the results and you have this visceral experience of these improvements, and you've got more time, you've got more motivation, you've got more productivity, you've lost weight and all these

Starting point is 00:07:27 wonderful things, then the answer's in the data, the answer's in the visceral experience. And then my job's done. All I've got to do is help people start, keep them going for long enough to have their own experience. Then their relationship's transformed. My own story, in that 90 days, I lost three stone in weight. You know, My body fat went from 35% down to below 10%. I got my time back. Here's the thing. People don't even think about time. Time's a modern day disease in the sense that we don't have any. Take a break from alcohol. You unlock tons of time. You've realized how much time you were wasting. For me, mornings were never an option. There was no time in the morning. It just could not exist. I took a break from alcohol. Suddenly I got up half an hour earlier, became two hours earlier. You can

Starting point is 00:08:08 transform your world in two hours a day. You know, in that space, I got fit, got healthy, wrote two books. This is all whilst I was working. Went back to university twice before the kids had even got up for breakfast. So what about someone who's listening to this and goes, Andy, look, I get it. I get that this has worked for you, but I am shy. I can't talk to people. I feel really nervous when I'm out in a bar or at a work meeting and actually having a couple of glasses of wine loosens me up so that I can have those conversations. Is this approach still for me, Andy? What would you say to them? Oh, absolutely. And I think where things have changed hugely in the last five or six years since i started is the advent of alcohol-free alternatives they're everywhere now there's been a huge shift in that heineken zero zero for example is unbelievably well stocked seed lip first world's non-alcoholic gin

Starting point is 00:09:01 these alternatives are there and there's real placebo in that. And when I first stopped, I used that placebo all the time. So if I was out socially, I would feel exactly like that person you described. I'd find it very difficult to socialize without those one or two drinks. So I had to retrain myself, but I did that whilst holding on to something that looked like alcohol, that tasted like alcohol, that stopped a lot of the social pressure because people assumed I was just drinking. And that was enough for me to buy me the space to retrain myself to be social without alcohol. And then you're unstoppable because you can do all those things that you always wanted to do without having to rely on this crutch that's actually holding you back. I wonder if you reflect on the last six

Starting point is 00:09:47 years, what has been your biggest learning? Biggest learning is that consistency is king. I think it's not about being perfect. It's about showing up enough time in a row and doing the right things. It's really simple. I think you can achieve your dreams if you show up enough time in a row and doing the right things. It's really simple. I think you can achieve your dreams if you show up enough times, whether that's to get the body that you want or the relationships, the connection, the vibrancy. It's just about showing up. It's not about being perfect. It's about showing up. Our journeys are probably slightly different. So I think the reason I have stopped drinking by and large, I mean, I will have a drink now and again, is because as I found more meaning and purpose in my life from my job, and listen to the podcast, we'll have heard some of this story before, but since my father died, who I used to care for, I've been on a real journey to discover who I am. And as I've discovered who I am, as I've started to do things in my daily life that really give me meaning and pleasure and purpose, I found that I no longer need to drink anymore because actually the alcohol was often there to numb.

Starting point is 00:10:59 Yeah. I think something you've said there is really poignant. I think the greatest discovery you'll ever make is your authentic self. And I think that's shining through. And I think something you've said there is really poignant. I think the greatest discovery you'll ever make is your authentic self. And I think that's shining through. And I think alcohol masks that. It puts on this affront, whether you're numbing or whether you're trying to be someone that you're not. And when you remove it, you get this chance to be you again. You get this chance to turn up and be social or relax or relieve boredom as you and experience life as you. relax or relieve boredom as you and experience life as you. And if there's things underneath that need to be dealt with, because that's very often the case with people, especially on the

Starting point is 00:11:28 stream end who use alcohol, you get this chance to bring back your vitality, bring back your energy and also deal with anything that's underlying, but ultimately become you again, your authentic self. That is so powerful. That is the greatest discovery you'll ever make. And I think that leads to more meaning and purpose and vitality in one's life. And I think that's the powerful that is the greatest discovery you'll ever make and i think that leads to more meaning and purpose and vitality in one's life and i think that's the experience that you've just had and i've had in many ways for many people the first step just like for you it's going to be reset your relationship with alcohol right absolutely and i think meaning and purpose comes from momentum in your life.

Starting point is 00:12:05 Just head in a direction, whether that's to take a break from alcohol, whether that's to transform your diet or listen to this podcast or read books, there's momentum. And where there's momentum, I think you grow meaning and purpose. And as I mentioned, culturally, I think we've been lured into this false sense of belief that we can just sort of, from a standing start, figure out what our meaning and purpose should be. And if you can't, then you're a bit broken and you're a bit unlucky, but it's not true. Just create momentum in your life, health, vibrancy, connection, and you will never know how it might just blossom. It might just appear along that journey. And then you end up being like me and you, and we're writing books and doing podcasts. And I'm talking to people

Starting point is 00:12:43 about giving up or taking a break from alcohol. Who would have thought that in a billion years? I could never have brainstormed that. I've got a pen out and gone, hey, I know what my meaning and purpose is going to be. It just happened from momentum in a direction of wellness and positivity. And I think that will take you where you need to go. Yeah. It happened as a default, as a result of you living your best life. Yeah. You didn't need it to live your best life. You started living your best life. And then as a default, as a result of you living your best life. You didn't need it to live your best life. You started living your best life. And then as a result, you start to find the meaning and purpose.

Starting point is 00:13:12 Which is just beautiful. It is. And even if you look at the world of positive psychology, there's a great guy called Sean Acker. And he has lots of research about success, for example. And he's actually saying, look, people don't get happy and vibrant when they're successful that's the traditional model actually if you really look at the science people who are happy and vibrant become successful that's the way around it is and it's the same with our wellness it's the same with meaning i think we find it when we are imbued with wellness and vitality and positivity and then we stumble upon it well When we feel better, we live more. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:13:45 There you go. You've built up a wealth of experience. So I wonder if you could share some of your best tips for my audience. Start today. Right now, make a commitment. Just do it. I think that's the number one thing, as obvious as that sounds. And again, I think to understand that failure is part of the process, this is so key.

Starting point is 00:14:04 As soon as you step outside your comfort zone, whatever it is you're trying to do, you're going to stumble. You're going to fumble. You're going to get things wrong. Learn from it. Dust yourself off. Come back stronger. Understand that motivation changes and be prepared to change with it.

Starting point is 00:14:17 The motivation to start is very often very different to the motivation you need to keep going and ultimately try to become someone that is doing the things that you want to do, whether that's someone that doesn't drink or someone that eats in a certain way or someone that moves their body. Ultimately, I think it is just to accept that just by showing up, as my last point, is consistency is king. Whatever it is you're trying to do, just trying to show up enough times in a row and you will achieve your dreams take it from me hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip please do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family and if you want more why not go back and listen to the full conversation with my guest? And if you enjoyed this episode,

Starting point is 00:15:06 I think you will really enjoy my new bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it at drchastity.com forward slash Friday five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #148 BITESIZE | The Surprising Benefits of Taking a Break From Alcohol | Andy Ramage

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