Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Brett found himself in a several decade battle with grey area drinking.

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

In this episode we have Brett who shares a reflective account of his journey with alcohol, starting from his relatively normal, religious upbringing, through to his involvement with a Christian college, in the music industry, and his ever-shifting relationship with alcohol. He talks about the phases of his life where drinking culture was normalized and admits as his career advanced, the pressures increased, leading him to turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism. He discusses a period of on-and-off sobriety and his eventual decision to become fully sober. Brett emphasizes that the concept of 'gray area drinking' was a significant factor, contending that many people fall into this middle area on the spectrum of alcohol use. Brett was not having fun anymore consuming alcohol and as much as he wanted to he couldn’t stop until he did this is Brett’s story on the Sober Motivation podcast. --------------- Connect with Brett on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/breadwilliamsburg/ Sign up for the Addiction Collective Virtual Summit: https://theaddictioncollective.com/ Connect with me here: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation/ Donate to support the show here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sobermotivation   02:09 First Experiences with Alcohol 03:50 Navigating High School and Faith 05:13 Transition to College and Early Drinking Habits 06:51 Entering the Music Industry and Increased Drinking 08:10 Reflections on the Early Twenties and Lifestyle Changes 10:59 The Shift in Drinking Habits and Its Impact 13:23 Managing a Band and Balancing Responsibilities 16:50 The Progression of Alcohol Dependence 27:17 Recognizing the Problem: The Struggle with Alcohol 27:41 The First Attempt: A Bet to Stop Drinking 28:33 Back to the Cycle: The Relapse and the Struggle 29:06 Work, Life, and Alcohol: The Intertwining Threads 29:49 The Descent: Feeling Alone and Increasing Alcohol Consumption 30:38 The Pandemic and Alcohol: A Dangerous Combination 32:06 The Turning Point: A Book and a New Perspective 35:18 The Struggle: The On-and-Off Relationship with Alcohol 43:27 The Final Decision: Quitting Alcohol for Good 44:43 The Journey of Sobriety: Challenges and Triumphs 51:49 Reflections and Advice: A Message to Others    

Welcome back to season three of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, we have Brett, who shares a reflective account of his journey with alcohol, starting from his relatively normal religious upbringing through to his involvement with a Christian college in the music industry and his ever-shifting relationship with alcohol.

He talks about the phases of his life where drinking culture was normalized and admits as his career advanced the pressures increased, leading him to turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism. He discusses a period of on and off sobriety and his eventual decision to become fully sober. Brett emphasizes that the concept of gray area drinking was a significant factor, contending that many people fall into this middle area on the spectrum of alcohol use. Brett wasn't having fun anymore consuming alcohol. And as much as he wanted to stop, he couldn't until he did. And this is Brett's story on the Subur Motivation podcast. How's it going, everyone? Welcome back to another episode.

Before we jump in, I just want to give you guys a heads up. My buddy Ryan and Drew Wild from Australia are putting on this incredible three-day event with over 40 speakers called The Addiction Collective, Not Your Average Snoose Fest. It's a free virtual event. I'll drop the link below to sign up. I'm taking the stage Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time if you guys want to come and hang out. And if you can't make that, there's 40 speakers going all the way through the weekend. So be sure to check out, sign up, grab your free tickets, and hopefully I'll see you there.

I wanted to share this quick review that came in. Brad's podcast is one of the most important things I've ever heard in my life and literally put me on the healthiest trajectory I've ever been on. I'm a 52-year-old man whose relationship with alcohol basically started when I was 18 and ended it eight months ago when I just randomly typed in sober on the internet. His eloquent patient and thoughtful honesty with his shows has changed my life. Thank you, Brad. Whoever that was, it only shows up on Apple's three stories, but thank you. And I've been getting a lot of messages recently from maybe people over 50 years old

or late 40s and kind of feel like, why now? Why make the changes now? Or even younger folks, maybe in your 20s, maybe in your early 30s. What I've learned from hearing over 130 stories here on a podcast and working with people directly and indirectly in ways over the last 10 years is that more than likely, things are probably not going to get better if you're already experiencing problems with your drinking. If your relationship with alcohol is not one that is positive, I don't know that that's

going to flip around. My whole reason for sharing that, if there's anybody out there that feels like you can't turn it around, you can. And I also want to say a big thank you for everybody who leaves a review because I get all the credit kind of for this show, but this is only possible because of you all that come and share your stories. So thank you for being willing to do that. Now let's get to the episode.

Welcome back to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today we've got a fan, a listener. Brett, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm well, man. I'm glad we could narrow down some time to share your story on the show. Same. I'm meet you.

I'm really excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Of course. So what was it like for you growing up? Well, let's see. I think probably a pretty fairly normal childhood. I grew up in Orange County, pretty like working class. My mom was a teacher, like second and third grade teacher. And for the most of my life, my dad was a minister. He was actually a minister in Arcadia. I grew up in Mission Viejo.

So he commuted up there. I think it was an intentional thing. We grew up in the church. And I think he wanted to some separation of the church where he was a pastor. and where we actually went to church. So I guess I grew up pretty religious and was very involved in the church all the way up and ended up actually going to a Christian college because of it. So yeah, three sisters.

I was the only boy. Yeah. And but yeah, happy childhood. As far as drinking goes, there wasn't really a lot in my house. I can remember when my dad would bring a beer home or something. But it wasn't really something that was in my childhood. So yeah. I would describe it as straightforward, but also very religious, which is probably where the lines and of all of these things in my life get a little bit blurry.

I know you've had a lot of people on the panel, I have a somewhat Christian background. And there's a lot that comes with that. And for me, there's a lot that came with that for sure. Yeah, interesting enough. Three sisters. Yeah, two older, one younger. Nice to have my older sister was eight years older than me. I had one that was five years older than me.

So, yeah, they exposed me to a lot of great things. But yeah, also, I was like in the middle, but also maybe, you know, yeah. even left to find my own way as the boy of the family. So yeah, it was interesting. We're all still very close. Yeah, that's cool. I know you sent me over a little bit of your story before all of this. And in there you had mentioned, you had your first drink.

I mean, to some people relatively early to others, maybe not. What was that? Yeah. As a funny experience to think about, I was probably 12 years old when one of my friends, fam, one of my friends' parents are divorced. So we go to his dad's house, which was like a fun thing, go spend the night in, I think it was like in Anaheim Hills or something, and go to his house and it's fun. They watch movies or whatever. But I remember one of the times he ordered pizza, looked at us and was like, hey, you guys, the only way to eat pizza is with beer. And I was shocked.

Like, what? And my friend must have already gone through this experience. And so he goes out to the garage, he gets to Coors Lights and brings him back and I'm 12 years old and we're cracking beers. I remember those sips coming like this taste, nothing like Coca-Cola and not enjoying it at all. I remember not finishing it. I remember my friend finishing it. And a couple other moments or times when I was there, I can't remember how many times I went there, but a few. And one time, I remember him shaking up cocktails and making us shots. And I remember it feeling exciting in a way that I knew we were supposed to be doing it. It never felt unsafe, which I'm thankful for.

It never felt like there was something going on. But obviously, like, I have a nine-year-old son. If your son came over and he told you I was making cocktail, like obviously there would be a massive line crossed and probably go to jail at this point. I never told my parents about it. It never felt like it crossed the line into something that was something that scared me, probably. And so I just let it be.

And I don't think I really thought about it much after that. And then through high school, I had friends that drink, but I was so involved in a thing called FCA. It was a thing called Fellowship of Christian Athletes. And I was seen as a leader, or I was a leader in that community. And so I think my friends even protected me from the high school drinking that happened. I think they would maybe go do it. I just wasn't really involved. Went to a couple parties when I was somehow invited and dabbled in having a couple drinks.

But in high school, I think there was so much shame attached to the idea of drinking. Shame was always something that's stayed with me through my life, I think, in many aspects, not just the alcohol, but because of growing up in such a religious community. I think that's just a very unfortunate result of being raised pretty conservative. So the times I would drink in high school, only a couple, I'd feel overwhelming shame. And I think that was enough to keep me away from it in high school. And when I did drink it, I didn't have those feelings of, oh, this is, you hear a lot of people when they have their first sip of alcohol. Like I feel the first time I ever felt normal or the first time I felt home or that wasn't my experience. Maybe because I was just so nervous about the penalty of God or something.

So yeah, it progressed normally and then through college until I turned 21. Yeah. And how does college look for you? You mentioned before, too. you went to a Christian college as well. Yep. Yeah. So I ended up at a school called Biola.

It's in South Orange County, very religious school. You have to sign a contract that says you won't have sex. You won't drink. You won't smoke. You won't do anything. And I ended up there. I don't even actually. I think I ended up there because A,

I didn't get into very many schools. And B, I actually just knew some friends that went there. And so I think that was enough for me. you'd be like, all right, I'll just go to this school. And at that point, I was still fairly religious and very involved in my church. And this was a Christian school. My dad was a pastor. So I was like, I guess I'm going to go to this school and become a pastor.

I was kind of aimless at that point about what I was going to do. So I'm 21 in school and my friend brings a beer over to celebrate that he went to UCLA. He didn't know the rules. He brings a beer over. We go to a park. I drink the beer. And it was fine. Again, not really enjoying it.

Move right. through it. And in school, the community, because it's a Christian college and because the contract, like, you could obviously go find the drinking, but a lot of my friends just weren't involved in it and just wasn't really happening. I would say until the later years of college. And so my junior year, my friend group really coalesces. And I find friends that I'm still friends with to this day. Some of my close, my best friends, actually, I find and that group kind of coalesces. And Funny enough, basically this big group of friends forms two bands. And first band, they were called The Color.

They had a little bit of success. They were on the tour and signed record deals and all these things. And they were my really close friend. And we starts going on these tours. And that's probably we're drinking inters. We're 21. We're on the road. We're having fun.

And we're, especially on tour, you get a lot of free alcohol. So it's like flowing at this point. And I'm starting to like understand it more, enjoy it more, move off campus. And alcohol is now, I guess, just a part of my life in a way that feels very normal and innocent. And at this time, you have a little bit, maybe we have a little bit more money. But at the same time, it just feels like we're, our friends are now worked at a really close friend that's working at bars.

And that's where we're going and getting drinks. And it's just like this time in my life, my early 20s where I feel like we're, we're young. We're having a ton of fun. It's really exciting, getting really into music, getting really into going out and live shows and doing some touring around the country. It's like growing up, my household was, I wouldn't say, very middle class. We didn't do a lot of big trips. Our trips were camping and going to a cabin up in the mountains for a week, but nothing extravagant. So it was like the first time I'm traveling.

So there's all these interesting things. I'm going out of California for the kind of the first. first time and having a lot of new experience with my best friends. And it just feels like this amazing time. And like I said, I think I wrote it's probably looked back in like my early 20s as some of the best times in my life. Being with my friends feel like the consequences of our alcohol use or it's very low. And we're just enjoying ourselves. Yeah. I mean, I didn't travel and do the whole band thing. But I mean, I can relate to in college. Yeah. It wasn't a, there were consequences were low. I mean, we had, we definitely had like your 21 and 20 and 21 and 22 year old sort of consequences,

but they were relatively low when it came to drinking. And I just found it. I was always made a little bit shy and introverted maybe. And I just found the alcohol. When I reflect at the time, I didn't realize it. But I just found that as the social lubricant, I could go into situations that otherwise I wouldn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel good enough.

And this is all retrospect, looking back at the time. I knew there was something up, but the benefits just outweighed the consequences for me initially, talking to girls and meeting people and being invited to stuff and people text messaging me. We had these new phones with text messaging. I felt like I had a purpose. And in the time, the consequences were just low. I mean, I failed at a school and stuff, but all my buddies, we were finding our way, right? A lot of us didn't do well with our academics.

We prioritized partying and connecting and socializing beyond that. But it wasn't anything. Nobody really came out and said, like, you got to straighten it out. And I can relate with you, too, back on growing up, there was never really any alcohol, too, around my place. You know, it's so interesting, right? Because we hear these stories on different sides of the spectrum, right? You hear the stories where it's like, when you hear somebody how they grew up and then

you hear that they struggle with addiction, it's like the stars lined up. And then you have some of us who I had that middle class life. My parents provided. every opportunity for me to do well. They helped me out every corner. They were loving. They were supporting. There wasn't drug use.

There wasn't alcohol. And then sometimes I reflect back on my story. And I'm like, man, where did this thing go off the tracks, right? So it's so interesting. So where do you go from there? You guys are doing your touring. You're getting more into this culture. And I mean, you could probably attest to this more than I can.

The music, the touring. I mean, rock stars. I mean, that is a big, especially then, right? that. I mean, a lot of people I hear that were into that. I mean, they idolize that, that partying and that all that type of stuff. So that environment can definitely be, be tricky to navigate. So where do you guys go from there? Yeah, it's interesting. I think it's right in line with going through that Christian, going through Biola, Christian College. I'm also simultaneously like deconstructing my faith. I still consider myself a very spiritual person and have

my own kind of relationship to that, but I'm definitely, and I think all of us in that group, really deconstructing what it means to us. There was a lot of things that happen at that school to friends of mine, to friends I made that I still to this day really disagree with and have really strong views against of how it was handled. I even, yeah, there's just, I have a lot of feelings about that college experience where like I almost can't believe some of the things that I had to see and witness and experience on this side. But at the same time, I'm met my wife, my best friends in the world, and it set me off on this career path that I could, I'm so thankful for. So it's a really interesting juxtaposition of what's happening between

my 20 to 25, right? And I feel really lucky that all my friends are all in the same, we're all on the same page. And so I do think drinking helps in that deconstruction. We are going to go totally the opposite side. We had to sign a contract like, fuck that. We're going to live how we want to live. And it's this music thing and it's really exciting, really fun. And maybe for a few of us, alcohol was always this thing that was taboo and we didn't do. But now it's like, fuck that, man. Like, we're having fun and we're living how we want to live and it's great. You know, so it moves pretty quickly, to be honest, we're all like moving off campus. We're all living together. At one point, I live in a studio, literally in a music studio with nine guys. And it was probably 800 square feet or something

like that. We all lived in the little control room with, we had bunk beds triple stacked. So we had three sets of three bunk beds. We all lived together. And again, having fun, but that's where alcohol is really starting to enter. And that's where I'm drinking way too much for the first time and having three-day hangovers because I drank like a half bottle or a whole bottle of wild turkey. But it's feeling, again, young and a little bit reckless. But they, I just know that it's starting to be everywhere for me. Around that time, my other friends start a band. And at this point, the original guys that are still my friends,

but were another band, they're off on tour. I stay in college and my other friends started band. And this band, they're called Cold War Kids. I managed them for about 17 years. And they put out music and I just say, hey, I'm going to be your manager. I had started intern at some record labels. I found my way of like, I want to work at music. And we just set off on this pack and we put out music and it worked and they got a record deal.

We just went off on tour and then it went from not just touring the state, we're touring the world. And I'm having these experiences all over the world and drinking is connected to it everywhere. And again, feeling like at this point now I have way more responsibility. And so that enters the picture. I'm now not just their friend, but I'm also their manager. I'm really the one that's guiding the ship of this. And we're still young, but as soon as obviously making money enters the picture.

And now we're all getting our own separate apartments and everyone's paying rent and everyone has more expenses. And the lifestyle quickly changes from we're young and this is just fun and drinking is just a part of it to, oh, wow, maybe just for me, I'm not sure their experience, because they were the ones in the band. I'm not in the band. I'm the business guy. So I remember it's the first time I really start to manage my drinking and really start to see like, all right,

that's when the drinking math and all stuff really enters the equation. I know it doesn't stop for 15 years, but I can mark that as the time when I'm like really starting to monitor, okay, I need to be careful. I have this thing where if I start drinking, I want to keep going. and I can't be that guy all the time who's drunk because I'm the manager of this band. And not only do I need to be a professional, but I also want to be reliable to my really close friends. So yeah, so that takes me through 30.

And then I feel like the next chapter is like marriage, kids, and real career shift to like big boy serious life. Yeah. Interesting there though, before we jump into that, that next phase here, you mentioned something there too about you picked up on this idea of when you started, you wanted more. You wanted to keep drinking. Yeah. It always interests me about when that shift takes place. Because when I first started, I didn't have any more thoughts of having more. I didn't stay up later than people when the party was over, when that was it, when it was a night. I was content with that. And then it flipped over into this, had this progression in a sense to where I would always be the last one up. I would always be trying to push the envelope. I would always try to encourage other people to keep this thing going when I was already well on my way. Like I was already well on my way to having enough to feeling maybe that one hour or I think

maybe at first it was two, three hours of energy. And then it seemed like over time that decreased, right? did the point of enjoyment decreased maybe down to 20 to 30 minutes because I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop and I didn't want to start. But that's a whole other thing. But I'm always curious to know if we can identify when that shift took place, when it was just like, hey, we were just regularly partying. And then now we're just not experiencing the same benefits and we just want more and more. Does that make any sense? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 100%. In that time, I would say in my 20s, I can identify as I don't know. I am that type of person. I'm all.

always looking for the next thing, the next party. What can we do? Always wanting to be planning a trip. Always want to be looking forward to the next thing. And I love being, quite frankly, I love being the life of the party. But it's funny in high school is like the sober Christian kid. I was still the life of the party with my friends goofing off or just being an idiot. And so, but like wanting to have that attention on me.

And so I think with the drinking, it just, oh, damn, look at this. That's the next level. If I can introduce alcohol into this, like I can keep going and I can be even more fun and have more experiences. And so it felt, again, in my 20s, it felt really, man, this just to say enhances everything. I'm having these new experiences with different types of people. It makes me more fun. It makes me all these different things.

This is amazing. And I can't mark in my life where the shift happens, though, where drinking all of a sudden, I'm going, oh, shit. Like, I'm not in. control of this anymore. And I'm not having as much fun anymore. And it feels like it's taken over. But it's not till it's really, I don't think I have that realization until really much later. I don't think it really happened for me until about 2020. Okay. Yeah. It's always something too. What about during this time, right? Because you've grown up too and you shared that there was a lot of

shame involved. Is that voice or that way of thinking and feeling starting to decrease about how you feel to be in raise and the connection to Christian. And is that starting to go down a little bit? Yeah, I think it is. I think there is way less shame in the drinking. There's still like the hangover and the shame over was always there for me and massively and the anxiety. And around this time, like I said, as we're going into my 30s, I'm getting more

anxious about my drinking because it's so connected to what I'm doing professionally. And so in this time, I'm like, it's a funny time you're a little bit. life from your 20s to your 30s when you're still like, maybe you're sleeping in a little bit more than you should have or maybe you're not attending to your responsibility as much should have, especially for me, it just like really ramped quickly, right? And so there was a lot of shame and anxiety around shit. I have so much to do this morning, but I was out last night and I drink too much and it's really affecting me. And so I think the shame converts from that where it was less about my religious background and more like my responsibility to my friends and my career.

And so it was really starting again, like that math equation of like, all right, how much can I drink this week? How much can I get away with? How much can I drink tonight? Because tomorrow I have these things. And that, I feel like that goes 10x once we start having kids because that's marked around the same time. Everyone's now buying houses. And it just goes, again, it just goes from a ton of fun with your friends. Like I would never dream of just like going on tour with my friends and getting free beers from the local venues. used to like now we're all in careers and the stakes are super high and the pressure that I put on myself to make sure that kept going was very high and the way I learned to cope and deal with it was through drinking and so I think that's when I started drinking I don't even remember drinking alone at my house but I think that's when drinking by myself enters but it's masked under this guise of, oh, I know how to make the best cocktails now. So I have every single type of alcohol in my house.

So it doesn't make sense. I have a bottle of brandy. I never even touch. But for some reason, I have a bottle of brandy when like I'm making all sorts of cocktails like by myself or would people come over or maybe sometimes from my wife. And so it's like, I'm tricking myself and I'm thinking like, oh, I don't need alcohol at time.

It's like this cool lifestyle. And that's, I stink when it goes to another level because I still have friends they're like, oh, I never drink alone by myself at my house. And I'm like, oh, shit. Well, yeah, that's, that just became a thing. And it wasn't like I'm getting trashed every night alone by my health. It's just one or two drinks. But that becomes this cycle. And man, alcohol is such an incredibly powerful drug. It gets the hooks in you. And I don't think, I don't think it started becoming a choice necessarily if I was going to have that one or two drinks every night. It just became my lifestyle and became everywhere. So it was my career is going out a lot, drink, travel a lot, drink. When I'm

home to relax, drink. Weekends, no question, with friends, go out, drink. And so it was pretty much pervasive in every single aspect of my life. And in a way that goes, wait, what the hell happened? Ten years ago, I hated, I even hated a taste of beer. And I feel like I've listened to you so many episodes of your podcast where the slope and the transition from that of how most people's stories aren't. I had my first sip of wild turkey and I drank the entire bottle. Most people's stories are this progressive story. And that's why I found your podcast so helpful because it's so shocking how slow it can happen, but how quick it can happen, right? Like, all of a sudden, I was going from hating the taste of beer to a year ago when I finally

I was having six or seven martinis just to get to that place that I was hoping to find. And I think alcohol, and there are certain books. I'm forgetting which ones, but there's a book called Quit Like a Woman by this woman named Holly Whitaker. I found so powerful. I think she references just that that's a very traditional role that alcohol can play in people's lives as far as addiction goes. It can really creep up on you and ramp up on you to the point where it takes more and

more. It's just very slow process for people. And all of a sudden, you're drinking by yourself at home every single night. And that's really what was happening for me all through my 30s. Yeah, I think that's what maybe makes alcohol so terrifying. Because I think if you do other stuff, if you use other stuff, your life can become unmanageable, probably quicker. Consequences can set in.

It's not even for everybody. I mean, there's probably people out there who recreationally use stuff and experience a lower minimal consequences. But I think for the majority, if you get hooked on cocaine or whatever it is, right, you're probably going to experience consequences faster, maybe wake up to it or maybe not. The thing with alcohol is it's so accepted in our society,

even if you've got a full-blown problem, I hear it time and time again, people are going to tell you you don't. And doctors, therapists, friends, family members, the wildest thing, and this is only my guess, but I think a big reason why that happens is because if you go to somebody and they drink like you, they look like you, they work like you, their life is, because the people we hang out with, there's a lot of things

in common. And if there's a lot of things in common there and you go to them and you say, hey, Brett, I've got a problem with drinking. It's really affecting my life, my relationships, my career, my goals, all these areas. And they can relate their life to yours. They don't want to hear it. So they're going to tell. It's threatened. You're going to tell you. come on man Brad Wake up There's nothing to see here dude

I never really had that problem I mean I was arrested so many times And making the paper and all this stuff When I was like yeah I'm gonna try to do this whole thing And change my world of everybody's yeah this is incredible Yeah you're right We don't have we don't have any more bail money To get you out of jail

But I do hear this story a lot of times And it's tough and that's why I think And even reading your story that you sent to me You went through So many of these different steps peeling the onion back and then towards the end I think it's we've got to really just get to a spot of honesty with ourselves that's scary because once we get there I think we deny it for a long time we put it on the back burner we don't think about it we cover it up but once it's

out there and we're so honest about it that hey this is really impacting my life then we start the wheels turning to do something about it and in that process takes time too. That process can for some people 10 years, for some people two years. But I think it's so important to get to that spot of honesty. So backing up a little bit here, what are the 30s looking like for you? Because you mentioned married, kids, it's a lot of stuff. So how does that look? Yeah. I would say that probably the internal pressure I put on myself starts to really mount. And again, I think the only way I'm knowing how to deal with it is through drinking. That just has become now my learned coping mechanism. And so my wife and I have our first child,

then our second, and it goes from managing like a couple bands. I'm now a part of this company. I'm managing somewhere in the neighborhood of eight artists or something like that at varying degrees. And a couple of them have varied huge ascends. And so there are high highs, right? And in those high highs, there's alcohol. And I would say that, pressure starts to really build here. And I can mark these moments in my life with that pressure. And like I said, the only way to really know how to cope with it is thinking that at the end of the night, a really hard day, come home, pour a glass at that time. I think it was whiskey. Pour a glass of whiskey. We're making old fashion. And that's how I'm going to decompress, right?

kind of knowing the next morning that the consequence was going to be more anxiety, more stress. But I think just thinking, well, that's just my job. That's not the alcohol. And in that, it's probably 2016. So I'm like, let's see, I'm 35 or something like that. I have my most successful year at that point as far as my clients. I'm having really high highs.

I have a client that's headlining Coachella. That's like a pinnacle moment for me. And I go into that the year before and I'm like, someone bets me a hundred bucks. It came up out of nowhere. And let's say at this point, I'm drinking every single day and I'm really analyzing it. Man, maybe it was the first time going, is this normal? Should I be drinking this much? I can't really tell, should I stop?

No one around me is stopping. No one around me is telling me that I should stop. My family life is in order. I have this job. It all seems to be going pretty well. But internally, I am constantly worried about how. much I'm drinking and how much it's affecting me, but something I'm thinking about all the time. So a friend, obviously not knowing this at all that I worked with, you know, I think I say something like,

I could totally stop drinking anytime I want. And he goes, no way. You can't do it. And I said, I can totally do it. And he says, okay, I bet you can't go five months. I said, okay, let's go. $100. It was like, $100 meant nothing. I didn't need it. I don't think it was about the money. It was just this, I knew in the back of my mind, I can think about it now. It's like, give me any excuse to stop. So that's the first time that I really put the brakes on. And I go about five months not drinking. And I can really mark that time as a really great feeling very clear, very present. There are times when I had to maybe travel to New York or something and sitting in the hotel room, like looking at the mini bar going like, would this be maybe a little bit more fun if I'm drinking,

but I don't. And I'm thankful for that. So I make it all the way to the five months. And course, celebrate somehow with, I remember it was white wine. And I remember drinking it and it like literally going in down my throat and like almost shuddering at the taste, feeling like I had just drank something so vile. I couldn't believe it. And my body was going like, why did you give that to me? But of course, just powered through and I think I got drunk that night. And I think I probably got drunk the next night. And it just got me back on the cycle as if it never happened. So I I think I spend the next two years in that cycle of attempting to manage it, trying to eat healthy, trying to be healthy, working 80 hours a week. I'm working so much at this point.

It's really taken over my whole life. Work is everything. And so drinking is just accompanies that. And it takes me to the end of 2018 where I remember being in Palm Springs and completely exhausted and just thinking like, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this job anymore. I need to stop. But I don't know how because it's so entangled with everything in my life, not just my best friends, but my family and everything is just connected to this. And so that's where it starts feeling alone. Me, I start feeling really alone and not really feeling like I have somewhere to go. And that I think we're drinking probably goes to a level that it had never been before, where it is all the time, and it is every weekend,

and it is finding excuses earlier and earlier on the weekend to drink, have a beer, have cocktails. I'm now bringing my friends way more into it. I was certainly, I'm the pace car for my friends when it comes to our drinking. If I was ramping up, they were ramping up. And so 2019, I feel it was a year where I just, we drank a lot. And by the end, I was just exhausted. And was the first time I was like, I started making active decisions to potentially move on for my job.

And of course, three months later, the pandemic. And it shuts everything down. Any idea of potentially moving on and finding a new job totally gone, especially my industry, the music industry, as you probably know, just got totally decimated and shut down. And we felt like we all knew it was. going to be a few years before I turned around. So obviously in the pandemic, as it did for a lot of people, alcohol was just around and delivery alcohol. It's all of a sudden thing. And I can get two bottles of tequila sent to my house in 20 minutes. And we're so bored and there's nowhere to go.

And now drinking is really like the main activity in my life. And if I'm doing something or going somewhere. We were able to do a lot of camping in the pandemic and get outside a lot. And luckily being in California, that was amazing. Drinking is at the center of that. And so it felt like in 2020 and 2021, that's when I'm drinking way more at home. There's way more alcohol coming through the house. My wife probably doesn't understand if there's one tequila bottle in a cabinet, she's not aware that it's actually been four different tequila bottles over the course of two weeks. She thinks maybe it's been the same one.

But again, I'm like holding it all together, but I'm just not happy. I'm really not happy. And I think that's when I started identifying that I'm not happy. And it's the beginning of 2021 when a really close friend that I'm talking to about this stuff and who also was drinking more than he wanted to. And he's now stopped for a few years. He hands me the book by Holly Whitaker. And funny enough, it's called Quit Like a Woman.

Obviously, I'm not a woman. But I would mark that as such a turning point in my life. that book, I'm not sure if you've read it or had people who read it, but it is an extremely powerful document or document of this woman's life and her alcohol, relationship to alcohol. And I think that's also the first time I hear someone use the term relationship to alcohol and she says in it, she hated it. And I think that term blew my mind up to that point, it's alcoholic or non-alcoholic. I don't think I'm an alcoholic because I have friends and colleagues.

and people who are alcoholics. They're the ones getting arrested. They're the ones in the news. They're the ones that lives are totally fucked up and upside down and their families are leaving them. That's alcoholism. What I do, I just like to drink. And there's a clear line between the two.

Until I read that book and I saw that term, my relationship to alcohol, I realized, holy shit. I hate my relationship to alcohol. I want it to change. And I had never thought about it that way before. Like I never felt like it. I had this kind of agency in a way over how my relationship to alcohol is.

And so that was a real turning point for me. That's great. The one thing there too where you say you kept it together, I mean, I'm with you on that, but I always felt like I had one foot on the banana peel. Like I felt like I kept it together. It required immense energy to the point of exhaustion and anxiety. And I was able to keep it together, but I also felt like at the back of my mind

there was this constant screaming voice of your eventually this is going to fall apart. You can't do this forever because you're exhausted. You're living all these different lives internally. And for me it was even hard at the end because I would say some people realized it was really bad and some people realized it wasn't really bad and it was really hard to even put on the front anymore.

Like after a while, it was just, it became that overwhelming, exhausted life to live to smile. To smile was hard because I knew, like in my core, I knew it was phony baloney. I knew that there I didn't have any happiness or joy left in my life. That escaped me a long time ago. And I was like constantly in this cycle of trying to find joy, like trying to find the dopamine rush from somewhere. And it was just looking back, I just know it was completely. completely depleted. It just, I was not able to feel any sort of a natural joy in any other way. And that's one of the things that

motivated me to turn my life around is because I was just worried that I had that realization that the only way I'm getting a dopamine release or I'm feeling good is about this stuff that's superficial or it's drinking or it's drug use. And it was scary to think it like, this is where I ended up. I can relate to that. I can relate to that. So that we talked. a few minutes ago about that moment. So this is when that moment is for where the shift happens or consciously. And maybe the shift happened a long time ago about the role of alcohol in my life. It probably did happen way before this. But I remember it hitting me like a fucking ton of bricks on my birthday in 2021, I think. Standard. Hey, all the guys are going to go out to a house in Palm Springs

and we're going to have a fun weekend and obviously that involves drinking. And for me, It's drinking pretty much all day. And being outside one time just by myself in a moment and having a beer. And at this point, who knows, like, it's hard to quantify how drunk I am at this point because drinking is just, I don't get drunk the same way anymore because it's just, and that's just what happens, as we all know. But sitting there alone among friends and looking at the beer and I have this very clear and profound thought that just says that comes to.

into my mind, which is this isn't fun anymore. What I'm doing isn't fun anymore. And I've lost the, I think what I wrote to you is it didn't feel like I'm using alcohol anymore. It feels like alcohol is using me. And that kind of stops me and scares me and is the realization of going, fuck, like, it won. And all of the fun and good time than ever.

everything that's led up to this moment fueled and it was like alcohol was using all of that to get this victory over me or something, which kind of sounds funny to say, but I really view it that way. And I marked that as a turning point, even though, of course, after that I didn't stop. It took me, I kept going. I would go maybe a couple months here and there. Stop, start, stop, start. You know that book? I think it's the easy way to quit alcohol. I'm Alan Carr. He wrote a very famous book about quitting smoking and then he wrote the counterpart about drinking. So I think that in a couple of months later, I read that book and in that book, he like Sarah very ceremoniously says, pour your last drink and drink it, remember it, and don't question the decision.

And I did that in 2021 and stopped for a few months and then started again. I questioned the decision. You took the words right out of my mouth on that one. Yeah. But I mean, I think it's a powerful line too, right? Don't question the decision and just keep it moving. But, I mean, the story you share there is shared by so many of us. You end up in that.

And I love the way it's put there too is your relationship. And also you're checking off all the boxes. All of us have been there as well. A lot of us anyway. Like, we don't look like this. We don't do that. We've still got this stuff. How can things be that bad, right?

And maybe at this point, nobody around us is even making and saying anything, right? So it's like that. 100%. Yeah. So it's like that thing. I feel like we get what we focus on is what we get. So if we focus on that stuff, I did anyway. I focused on those things when if I would have looked a little bit deeper, I probably would have seen the other stuff internally that I was being affected by.

But that stuff for me for a long time wasn't motivation enough to change. It was when I got external pressure. I mean, it was definitely helpful to make the changes. It's so interesting there, too, how we go through this cycle. And then you mentioned, too, you didn't quit then. You're a couple months on, a couple months off. And I mean, my goodness, man, that right there, the whole journey is tough and exhausting and challenging. But that one right there, really, I feel like it poses some different effects internally, right?

When you're just, you want nothing more than to walk away. Yeah, you're really battling. And that's where I think this gray area drinking, I really do that term. And I've heard a lot of people on your podcast talk about it. And I think it's the thing that I, the reason why I've been vocal about it in my community, because I'm in the music industry and it's rampant. And it's just so important to talk about because it manifests so many different ways. And you're exactly right.

People around me, I'm a normal, quote unquote, drinker. They don't know that internally I'm really struggling with it. And what's funny is if I'm being really honest with myself around this time, into 21, 22, and then even into last year, yeah, 21 into 22 and I finally stopped. If hangovers were becoming so bad, and if I wasn't feeling like shit all the time, I don't think I would stop.

I really do feel like it was the, it was like this health thing and not feeling right all the time that eventually finally was like, I can't take this anymore. There are people that I know in my life who are like, don't get hung over. And that's on one side of my brain,

Oh my gosh, what a life. Like, you're so lucky. You can drink with no consequences, which obviously is not reality at all. But my hangover started to become so drastic and just feeling depleted in every single way at all times. And it really started to show up as my kids are getting active. You're going from diapers and toddlers into five, six, seven-year-olds. And they're wanting to do something. And Saturday morning, they're like jumping on the bed, let go.

and I'm laying there half dead because the night before I had five martinis and I feel like shit. That's where the shame triples for me. And the feeling of what am I doing becomes really difficult. But it's hard to break those cycles because, again, it's the only way I know how to cope. And so I really think therapy was a huge part of me starting to understand how to cope. I started doing that in 2021. At the end of 2021, I make the decision to quit this job that has been my identity and my whole life up to this point. Again, all my best friends, my wife, everything is wrapped up in this job.

And I made the decision to walk away. That was when I quit again for four months. I wanted to be really clearheaded. I did. And I was like, okay, this is great. I'm quitting this job. I walked away from it in a way that I'm. really proud of and honored a lot of the relationships I'm in. I'm still best friends with all

of the same people and I'm still in the same community, but I've transitioned out and it went well. And I'm like, oh, it wasn't at that point. I'm like, it's not the drinking. It's this job. And that's what was the thing that was torturing me. Obviously, that's not right. But I go back and it's like drinking the one last stand. And I hit it really hard in 2022. And I'm drinking. And I think I drink most days. And every weekend, it's gone, again, it's gone way up into multiple martinis.

And it's Friday and Saturday night are just definitely getting drunk. And then I'm starting to see that it's, I'm out on Tuesday, drunk Wednesday. It starts really going. And then I'm starting to tell myself that I'm not going to do it and I do. And as people say, the drunk mat is now dominating. so much of my brain. I'm like, if I have a drink on two drinks on Monday and I have this meeting

on Tuesday, I'm high, I'm using those like liquid IVs and I'm just constantly managing it all the time. And finally, I'm 39. I'm about to be 40 and I seal 60. I look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself. I'm 30 pounds overweight. I go to the doctor for like the first time in 10 years. My blood is a mess. I'm just like, I'm on this terrible act of literally being everything I don't want to be by the time I'm 50, where there's serious consequences. And I finally just decide, I got to do something about this. I can't do it anymore. I'm not enjoying it. I'm not enjoying it. I'm not not bringing me anything at all, but I can't stop. And it's a fucking crazy place to be at a really hard place to be. And so I reread that book by Holly Whitaker. I reread Alan Carr's book. And I just

make the decision, I'm going to go to New York in December. I'm going to go after it. We're going to be like just my wife and I and some friends and no kids and I'm going to nurse these hangovers. And I'm going to hang it up on December 31st. And so we come back. We have New Year's here and I have a gin and tonic on January 1st of 2022. I drink half of it. And I poured it down the drain. And that was it. That's what I stopped. And I haven't had drink since. Wow. Well done, man. Incredible job. Yeah. Incredible job. It's so relatable the story though, right? Because you hit that spot to where it's not funny anymore. It's not bringing anything to your life, but a bunch of stuff that's not benefiting our lives,

but you can't quit until you do. So what's the last year been like for you? Yeah, that's really interesting. And it was a real year of self-discovery. I do feel like alcohol played a role in my life that really limited me from pursuing a lot of things and it numbed a lot of things I really love to do. I really love to read. I didn't read any books while I was drinking.

I really love to write. never wrote while I was drinking. It really, I feel like, stole a lot of time from me, whether that was sleeping in because I was hung over or just if I got home, why I do something productive when I can go pour a glass of tequila or something. And so all of a sudden, I feel like I had a lot of time on my hands and trying to understand what it was. My dad, like I said, I did say my dad didn't have a lot of alcohol around the house when I was growing up. But once we were gone, bottles of wine started to rack up a little bit more. So my dad actually stopped drinking completely when in his 50s. And that's probably then I'm probably in my 20s or so when he does that.

And so I noticed that. And so I'm trying to and I know it's in my family. Like my mom's mom, my mom, my dad's dad, there's alcoholism in my family. So I start to explore that. I start to explore what alcoholism is. I'm reading every sober book that's out there. I feel like I've read them all because I'm trying to glean information about what is this? what am I? Because I almost want, and I to identify me like, oh, I'm that person.

Kind of, but beginning to understand like, I'm on this crazy spectrum. And certain books resonate, certain don't. I go to probably 10 AA meetings. I find those to be interesting and helpful, but it doesn't, it just doesn't feel like my community for a bunch of reasons. And I do, I've seen AA do incredible things for friends. And I think it's an amazing, I think it can be a great program, but it just didn't feel like my place. And so those didn't really stick. And what I found was through a lot of, honestly, like your podcast, there's a couple others that I listened to. And I've just found the community through, I've just found my own, I guess, community, which just for support and leaned on that when I needed it, the first three months were like,

incredible. I was like probably the most annoying person on the planet saying, this is the greatest. I'm never going to drink again. It's so easy. Telling everyone, the three month mark, I had never heard about the pink cloud. Have you heard about this? Yeah, I've never heard that term before. And my friends were like, careful, like this thing called the pink cloud. And I was like, whatever, I'm never going to drink again. And three months in, I like heavily doubt the decision. Like, it's the first time where I'm like, what the hell am I doing? This is stupid. I'm not a fun person anymore. No one likes me. No one wants to be around me. All this stuff. And at that moment, my wife really helps me and coaches me through that. No, you don't understand. I see these changes. You're doing great. Keep going. And that kind of happens at the funny enough, that kind of happens at the three, six and nine mark. And there are days when I don't even think about it. Weeks, I don't think about it. And then there are days that feel like, again, why am I doing this? This is pointless. I'm beat so much happier. Things would be so much easier if I just drank and working through that. And so finding the tool. And so finding the tool.

schools, friends, therapy, different books, just to really work through those feelings. And again, your podcast and hearing from just normal people about their lives and their struggles have really helped to make you not feel alone because, and that's why it's become a many passion of mine to spread this is because I do think that there are these labels of alcoholic and non-alcoholic. And in Holly Whitaker's book, she says, you're not an alcoholic until you are one. I googled it.

I googled it. I know people Google it. I know friends that Google it. And you're like, okay, how many boxes do I check? And it's self-labeling. And that's like the craziest thing. You'll never, why would anyone sign up to be an alcoholic? No one would.

And so that's something that I wanted to be very vocal about. You don't have to be an alcoholic. You just have to be unhappy. you with how you treat and how you have your relationship with alcohol. I think that's something that's starting to become more and more talked about in our culture, but I feel like not until recently has it been something that has been really discussed. Yeah, well, that's an incredible list of things. And I appreciate your support with the show and that it's been helpful for you

and that everybody shares your story and then we've got you here sharing your story. It really hits home, man, your story, not just with me, but I think it will with a lot of people because that's where we land, right, on that spectrum. Of one end, somebody who's never drank at the other end, maybe somebody who's physically dependent on it, or however we want to draw it up. And then there's millions of people that are slotted in between those two markers. And I think you're right that the conversation is opening up.

I had Hillary Phelps on, and she mentioned this one thing, that the elevator only goes down. And I don't know if this is something that is going to be across the board for everybody, but I would feel comfortable saying for the majority of us, that's going to be the experience, is that once we cross that line of feeling the shame around drinking, I don't know if it's possible to go back to it just not being like that

because it's not every time that things go sideways, but things do go sideways. And I know people in my life were just casual drinkers and things for them never go sideways. They never do. And I heard this thing too from the Huberman podcast, which I love a couple of his episodes too, but a good identifier that he's mentioning

and there's science and that's his whole podcast. And I don't know everything, quote for quote. I'll do my best thing is that those of us who tend to struggle with alcohol when we start drinking, we feel a lot of energy. And we can keep that going at first, right? A lot of us have three hours and we're just pumped up. We're excited. people who aren't going to struggle with alcohol or who are less likely, they get tired, right?

That curve kind of flattens a lot faster. And then for us, I mean, I'm ready to go like four, five, six hours. And the way I get more energy is I just keep drinking. And you'll hear a lot of times people too, like, I'll clean the house, have a few drinks. But I'm like, now I get it because when I wanted to do stuff or do this, yeah, we were always drinking. And it provided us this energy. and then when I look around me now at people who have a different relationship with alcohol than I ever did, yeah, they're not cleaning the house when they're drinking. That's not a bit of their routine.

But as we, yeah, but I really appreciate you coming on here and sharing this story. And huge congrats on over one year now. And I mean, starting off in the new year, I mean, for the new year and all this stuff you're doing is incredible. Is there anything you would like to leave everybody with today before we sign off? I guess the big thing that I'm thinking about right now is just you're not alone in it. And there are so many different, as we said, there are different ways and some of the different outlets. I feel like now to explore this. And I think so many people are so scared of what their friends or social circle will be like.

And that is a thing. You have to re-learn what it's like to go out and be around people at times when drinking was really the main focus. But I can tell you that a year into it, I don't think I've missed anything. I don't feel like anything is missing from my life. My close friends who were there before are even there closer now. And it's funny, because I've stopped drinking. And like I said, I was the pace car from my friend group. The level of alcohol intake from my friend group has cut in half.

And it's been extremely beneficial for all of us. And so if something about the social pressures or your friends telling you like, oh, they're not going to want to hang out with you or that way, A, they're probably not your friends that begin with. And B, I can just tell you that it's been so much full ceiling going this way than they continuing to drink. Because that was another thing, too. I just felt like my relationships were actually becoming more and more empty than actually becoming more full because the alcohol was robbing us of those connections. And so. And I think that's a huge, a huge hurdle for so many people thinking. that the social pressure and the social norms of this gray area drinking will limit them. And I guess I can say a year into it, it's work. You have to work at it. But I can tell you it's so much more fulfilling than the alternative. Yeah, that's beautiful. And that is something.

You're right. That's brought up so much. I always go on the idea of four quarters is better than a hundred pennies because my circle did shrink, but the quality of the relationships skyrocketed. I mean, there was actually something there. When I looked back to at people I was hanging out with, And it was nobody's fault. It was nobody's fault.

But I didn't know anything about them. They didn't really know much about me. I mean, we couldn't sit down for a coffee together. It would have been the most awkward thing in the world. Right, exactly. And now you can do that. You could do that. I want to mention to everybody, too, if you guys want to hear Brett put together this thing.

Is it okay if I share your site here? Yeah, please. It's my alcohol story.org. Is that the main address? That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, check that out.

I've never put a blog together before. I even know how to do it. I was able to figure it out. And so, yeah, that's it. And honestly, through your podcast was, I forget the exact episode of what it was, but something struck me about what would it be like to write my life story through the lens of alcohol? And it came out so fast.

And I was honestly shocked about, wow, what a role it's played in my life. Such a minor thing that growing up almost had nothing to do with my life became the absolute centerpiece of it was pretty shocking to me. I appreciate you sharing it. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So go and check that out a little bit more in depth there in the written version, maybe a little bit of a different take. But yeah, check it out. Thank you so much, Brett, for jumping on the show. Thank you, man. I really appreciate it. Well, there it is everyone. Another incredible episode here on the podcast. Thank you, Brett, so much for being willing to come on here. Reach you now and sharing your story with us. I'll draw Brett's information so you can contact them on Instagram,

down in the show notes. I'll also drop the link for the signing up for the free virtual event, the Addiction Collective, down in the show notes. I'll see you guys on the next one. Keep on rocking. Thank you so much, as always, for your support. The podcast is really gaining some ground. We're creeping up on a million downloads.

Once we do, I'm going to line up another eight-hour live-a-thon on Instagram with a bunch of the guests that have been on the podcast over the last couple months. So thank you guys. and I'll see you on the next one.