The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Ruari Fairbairns, Founder of One Year No Beer

Episode Date: October 16, 2022

Ruari Fairbairns, Founder of One Year No Beer Oneyearnobeer.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, we're coming to you with a great podcast. We certainly appreciate you coming on the show with us today and listening. And as always, the family that loves you but doesn't judge you,

go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss. Go to youtube.com, 4chesschrisvoss. All the great places we are in the interwebs, the big 130,000 LinkedIn group, LinkedIn newsletter, and see the new LinkedIn audio chat we're starting to use over there as well. We just got access to that. It's pretty freaking awesome. Today, we have an amazing gentleman on the show. He is the CEO and founder of a company called One Year No Beer.

Rory Fairbairns is on the show with us today. And he is going to be talking to us about his amazing company, One Year No Beer, and Take Control Programs. With over 100,000 members in 138 countries, he's been featured on the BBC, national radio, TV, and is a motivational speaker and inspiring, who inspires people to change their relationship with alcohol. Welcome to the show. How are you, sir? I'm fantastic. That was my fault. I let you down there with that. That was like an anchor man you know who put a question mark in the

telegram there you go i mean sometimes they read they read good or whatever but we throw so much energy in the show at the beginning sometimes my brain goes right out the window so the things we cut net it so welcome the show give us the dotcom so people can find you on the internet, please. Completely. Oneyearnobio.com and Icantakecontrol.com. There you go. Icantakecontrol.com. It sounds like everything any of my girlfriends have said to me.

And I control you, Chris. Somebody wrote that to me on Facebook the other day. They're like, Will, have you twisted around our finger? And I'm like, I've seen your pictures. No, you, Chris. Somebody wrote that to me on Facebook the other day. They're like, will you twist around our finger? And I'm like, I've seen your pictures. No, you won't. So anyway, guys, give us, tell us some about your history, your upbringing and what led you up to starting these companies? Wow. This is just a 45 minute question. No, no. So I grew up on the West coast of Scotland, you know, pretty synonymous drinking culture, just like many places are and watch family, friends, celebrate, commiserate, congratulate with alcohol. Never really had a problem, but just partied hard,

like most people really. Set about in the world, entrepreneurial world. I set up my first business when I was 15. Tried five different companies by the time I was 25. All failed. Serial failpreneur. I got very- That's what we do. Very good at it. Indeed. And then through the TV program, The Apprentice, I was contestant number 15 of 14 contestants. I ended up becoming an oil broker in London. And that's me just whistled you through 26 years. In London, very successful career as an oil broker, wining, dining, all of

what you could imagine. And a lot of taking you know, taking clients out and entertaining and whatnot. And again, I never had a problem with alcohol. I wasn't waking up and putting whiskey on my cornflakes. But I did know that it was, yeah, I did know that it was causing some issues in the back of my mind. And I decided one day to take a break from alcohol and just blew my mind about all the benefits. And so now I just spend my time trying to inspire people to see the benefits of changing their relationship with alcohol. Definitely. And there definitely is. As we talked before the show, I didn't start drinking until I was in my 30s. And I pretty much went on a 20-year fun ride with bottles of vodka. And I owned a

bikini team and dated models so there was there was a lot of sun dance parties that i went to and things like that a lot of hollywood stuff and yeah i had my fun but it did reach a point where finally you know hitting my 50s my body was like and i you know i lost weight and i started listening to my body and started watching while i was eating and i just started realizing realizing that the dehydration and stuff was sticking with me for days. And I'm like, finally, I just reached a point where I'm just like, these hangovers, man. I drink three beers to get a hangover. You just can't do it when you get old.

So I feel you. So it made you, gave you a proponent to start these companies? Yeah. So, I mean, basically, you know, this is back then, this is 2013. It was unheard of for an oil broker to not drink. It was serious peer pressure for me to drink. In fact, my boss told me I was committing commercial suicide if I stopped drinking and it was just unheard of, you know? And I think that just is a big shout out to everyone who works in any industry where they think that, oh, this is just the norm and there's a lot of drinking and everything else is that although there was all this pressure there to

continue, I, I actually through meditation and I was like, hang on a minute, you know, I really think this is causing, I really think there's something up here, even though everyone was telling me it was normal, even though it was normalized all around me, I mean, in London, you know, in that scene. And then when I did take a break, I just couldn't believe it, you know, so much fitter, healthier, faster. I grew my business by 50%, reduced our costs by 30%. Every area of my life improved, lost weight. I realized that I'd been, you know, I thought I'd had IBS. It wasn't. The things, niggling health issues that I'd sort of seen a doctor about or a therapist or a psychiatrist, I saw a lot of those things disappeared. And I was like, this is unreal.

You know, forget about whether you've hit rock bottom, obviously greatest respect to everybody who unfortunately get to that place or, you know, whatever the symptom is. Let's just talk about this from an advantages perspective, right? Let's just talk about this from, Hey, do you want to lose weight? Do you want to get fitter? Do you want to get faster? Do you want to be better? Who isn't Googling that? Who is not doing that? I want to be more productive. I want to get fitter? Do you want to get faster? Do you want to be better? Who isn't Googling that? Who is not Googling that? I want to be more productive. I want to get richer. I want to be more successful. I want to improve how I show up at work.

I want to improve my marriage, my relationship. I want to improve how I am with my kids, right? I want to get rid of these niggling health issues. And it seemed like alcohol was this gateway to it all. So first of all, I ran around like, you know, the, the, the guy on the street here, ye, here, ye, everybody got to stop drinking. And everyone was like, what are you talking about? They're like, they're like, what are you talking about? Exactly. You don't get a drink evangelical. So I was like, okay, that's not working. Nobody wants to really see that for themselves. So I said, well, how do we get people to realize the benefits

themselves? I know let's create a challenge. And so that's where the idea for One Year No Beer came from. And it's been enormously successful. We've helped a lot of people not just change their lives, but to go on and change their lives around them and inspire other people to change their relationship with alcohol. And I think fundamentally, this is not a sober community. This is not about not drinking. This is about pressing the reset button so that you have a better relationship with alcohol, whatever that means to you.

And we are there to help you reassess your relationship with alcohol. So you don't have to be a fall-down drunk, you know, like you mentioned, the person who has whiskey in their weenies in the morning. You know, I mean, I always had the rule that if I ever started drinking in the morning, that was probably what time to see help. And I never had an addiction process. I don't have an addiction personality, but you know, there, there, there's so much that you gain when you quit booze. I mean, it's a toxin in your body. People don't realize that. You know, it's a hundred percent poison, right? And we don't

need to go down that route because we've all heard that and everything else. And everyone's off to that noise anyway, because there's so much into the benefits. So that's why we've got to steer it back across to the conversation of something really simple, right? Okay. So just before everyone says, oh, this is for addicts. No, sorry. Anyone who's drinking more than three glasses of wine a week or five beers a week, right? Anyone who's drinking more than that, I absolutely guarantee you'll have significant mental and physical life upgrades if you take a break from alcohol. I absolutely guarantee it.

And if you find out that you do the challenge and you go through 90 days or 28 days or whatever it is, you go through 90 days and not drinking and you get to the end of that and there's no change, please do call me up. I'll guarantee your money back. In fact, double your money back. You'll be the first person in over 100,000 people in 138 countries to call me because it just won't happen.

There's a significant upgrade to be got there for people. And you built this up to over 80,000 members that are part of the one-year No Beer website and community. You know, the other thing is I would I would, I would notice that after a night of drinking, I would bloat and put on water and your body puts on water because you've dehydrated it. And so it overcompensates. So it, it floods you with water and you carry that weight for two or three days, at least in my body. And I would just feel bloated. I'd feel just nasty. I would just, you know, I just be like my body would be, would be going, Hey, you know, he's drinking. So we got to overcompensate with water,

you know, dehydration, the lack of vitamins with the hangovers and stuff. I mean, at one point I, I reached out to my friend who, you know, we used to drink a lot and we got into our late forties and fifties and I'm like, dude, I'm really suffering, man. And he goes, oh, man, dude, you're just getting old. You've got to start taking electrolytes and vitamin B and take your vitamins before you pass out at night. And I tried gaming that, and that helped a little bit more. But it just finally reached a point where the bloating, the weight that would go on with the water weight. And then the other thing that I didn't know was that it actually lowers a man's testosterone when you drink. Yeah.

Yeah. There are, well, A, but there are lots of, you know, health impacts from alcohol. I mean, again, let's skip on past that one, right? It's like it causes cancer. That's absolutely labeled it. And I think what we'll see over the next, certainly five years, is cigarette-style labeling on alcohol drinks. It's going to happen in Europe soon.

They've already passed the bill. So we're going to see such a huge change. The world is changing its relationship with alcohol. Millennials are drinking less. The rise of alcohol-free alternatives. There's never been a better time to be reconsidering your relationship with alcohol. There is a key thing here, really, and something that we discovered is what we saw is we saw a lot of people every year, for instance, they go and they go, right,

I'm going to do dry January. And they would abstain from something. So they'd use a lot of white knuckling, a lot of willpower. They would then change their environment. They would stop seeing their social circle. They'd hide from their friends because they're boring and it's dull. They'd go on Twitter and talk about how crap it is or count down the minutes until the 1st of Feb so they can go and get drunk again. But all of our drinking is psychological. And so all you're doing is reaffirming the limiting belief that fun, sexy, happy, awesome life is with alcohol and dull, boring, rubbish life is without alcohol. And so lots of people would go through these months and they'd maybe have a better

relationship for a little bit afterwards from that call on, but then they'd find themselves coming back and it would come back worse. And many, many people saw this from the pandemic, right? And the impact of the pandemic on the world's psyche was decimating. And so many, many people got a much more toxic relationship with alcohol. So in looking at this, we said, well, hang on a minute. How do we help people really shift in a very big way? What are the things that actually cause alcohol to show up? And this is where we discovered something really amazing is that the actual truth is, is that alcohol showing up like that is actually a gift. Now, I know some people can find this a bit confronting, but the truth is, is that the reason why alcohol is showing up like that is it's a symptom. And what is in underlying

are these causes and these behaviors and these things in our lives. Now you can use it as an opportunity when you stop drinking to really start focusing on those things to make sure that they shift so that the addictive behavior, which is what it is, bad habit, where that doesn't suddenly come back, come back worse or morph into something else, right? How many people stop drinking and eat sugar like it's going out of fashion? How many people stop drinking but bury themselves into work or gambling or sugar or caffeine or porn or you name it. Okay. So when we went really deep into this, we said, okay, well, now that we understand the underlying factors, can we actually create something that enables people to shift in a big way? So in June, we launched a program designed for high achievers, top performers, senior execs,

business owners, entrepreneurs. And we want to literally throw the kitchen sink at them over eight weeks, okay? Because over eight weeks, what we're saying is we're going to work on significantly on the reasons why alcohol is showing up in your life so that after that eight-week period, you have a roadmap from which you can control your drinking. Now, control is very different to just not drinking. Control is yes or no, or I might have one, or I'll stop at half, or I'm not going to drink tonight. Control is where I drink, right? I drink as much as I want,

whenever I want. I just usually choose not to because I don't want to, and I don't want the impact afterwards, but I'm not bothered if I do. And this is the first program of its kind that I know that is helping people get control of their relationship with alcohol. And it's having enormous success. We've now had over 40 people through the program. We're just about to launch our next one soon. And it's, you know, Cecilia who came on our podcast, I think she says life changing 33 times in a 45 minute space. So it's been a pretty powerful program. I can tell you it definitely works.

I used to think I thought I slept better drinking at night because I would kind of work really long and then I'd be able to pass out. It's a sugar. So I would actually be able to work longer and I'd be tired. And I'm, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. So I know i'm an entrepreneur so i'm like fucking i'm gonna have some drinks and and it would give me juice man as long as i was drinking i was like partying and i could work longer at night and then i thought you know i would sleep better at night and i and i really didn't understand that i really wasn't sleeping better at night in fact it was really awful for sleep and then you know i was living on a terrible for sleep so many people use it for sleep and it just decimates sleep.

Yeah. And then you wonder why you're always tired and drained and dehydrated. And then I was living on Tums and Rolaids, you know, it was just eating my stomach. But between that and the Mountain Dew, I was drinking the pot. Omri's apazol or or those heartburn medications and acid medications i was on those and drinking gaviscon like it's going out of fashion which is the the heartburn stuff and yeah just all that and so normalized right yeah and the one thing i learned too was no one knows what i'm drinking if i go out with friends so i can have a coke and they just think i'm having a rum and coke and if somebody asks i mean i'm not i don't i'm not a bash but if i was a recovering alcoholic in a program or someone who had concerns about the thing you just say you have a rum and coke like no one's gonna

no one's gonna check your rum and coke yeah no one's gonna be like i don't believe you let me drink that and see what you know you're like dude i just drank that no one's gonna check if you just you get a rum and coke or you just get a coke in a shot glass and people think it's a roman coke and they're like what are you having i'm having roman coke like doesn't bother me to say you know i'm just having a coke because i'm i'm not gonna have a hangover tonight but you know if you're really concerned you can lie about it you know and uh this is this is what's crazy we had to sort of create a stealth drinking program to help people because in in in honesty certainly in my industry back then is that not drinking could cost you enormously you know one account hundreds of thousands of dollars you know

it's like okay so i have to drink and we're power drinking when we go to lunch and i remember this one time i wasn't drinking and we went in and I went I'd go in early and I had all these techniques that I used to do and I went in and I took the you know the restaurateur or the bar 50 quid and about look whatever happens wherever we're ordering mine is alcohol free unless you just can't get away with it and then I'll just drink the alcohol it's fine but i'm on alcohol free and so great no problem i got it so we sit down and all these lads just sit down right you know let this right point point point yeah point point point but along come their pints don't don't don't don't don't and i'm waiting for mine and next minute this like candle holder flowery sequin glass is placed in front of me and then this dusty bottle of becks blue is popped next

to it you know like would you like to open it for me here or would you like to i'm like what is this get this away from me right now and get me a pint you know before i lose this bigger client of mine so the thing is is that those pressures do exist out there for people yeah and if you're trying to climb the ladder or make or prove yourself or things like that, that is so much the world. And the thing I would say to people is that it is, but literally 50% of it is made up in your head. And you realize that afterwards. You're like, good God, look at all that pressure I was putting myself under. Just like Chris said there, you can have these techniques, right?

You can stealth drink right which is you know you order a pint of beer but yours is alcohol-free beer nobody needs to know and then when somebody gets you around pour it in the toilet or the the flammable pot and then go on yourself order an alcohol-free version so there's ways around it yeah normally i mean like when i'm dating to just get away from the bill sort of situation when it gets set in front of you and all that, a lot of times I just, I, I excuse myself and go to the bathroom and, and I'll pull the waiter aside, pay him, give him my credit card. And that way I'm just like, just make sure this doesn't, you know, or if I'm, or maybe if I'm out with family or somebody and you know, everyone's going to fight over the bill and I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to beat him to the bill. And so I'll do that but you know you can just you just go to you can just be like hey i'm going to go to the bathroom and i'm going to refill my drink when i go up there and just go up to the bar and get a

coke like no one knows i mean i've drank in cokes when i'm out drinking no one has ever asked me what are you drinking you know they just assume it's a it's a rum and coke or you know whatever it's it's like you know you can even do a Red Bull and it looks like Red Bull vodka. And you're just like, no one knows. And no one's going to like, no one's going to check it. Like no one's got to be like, give me that. And so you just, you know, you excuse yourself, go get a, go to the, you know, say you're going to the bathroom or going to the beer or whatever, get a wander, you know, there's all probably sorts of ways you could do it if you're really insecure about it. But a lot of people, you know, you certainly, you know there's all probably sorts of ways you could do it if you're really a lot of people you know you certainly you know business owners and things like that

they just feel like it's it's got to be done and it's part of the deal and you know one of our one of our guys in our our complete control program he runs a big talent organization and he's just like you know i don't know how because i'm expected when i either meet these celebs or meet their agents or everything else it's just like they're not going to do business with me. And I'm like, you have to understand that so much of that is the construct of your head. You're only going to really understand that when you challenge it and you see that it's actually okay. And the second thing is you could always do what I did as an oil broker. And I just hired two juniors and I took them to lunch with me. And I said, these guys are drinking for me. So make sure you go hell on them. Right. And people just used to think that was absolutely hilarious. Now I'm really sorry to the guys.

They have liver issues now. No, they don't. They're actually very well. They don't think I would pick over my business and are very wealthy young lads. So they're fine. But, um, yeah, it was a, it was a much better tactic. So there's ways around it. I think, you know, so many people are caught up either. It's become this prevalent thing at home, you know, and so many, many people now, it's like there's these factors of boredom. You know, we went through the pandemic and it was just so easy. It was so easy to slip into something and carry on and everything else. And these habits became more and more ingrained. And now it's like, hey, you know, I have control of so many areas of my life. Like

I've clearly demonstrated I dominate in business. You know, this is our customer talking and many people out there, right? I've dominated in business. I've been successful. I'm able to control so much. And yet I feel this thing is just out of control. And that is where we can help the most. You know, we really want to help people dial in the reason on why that's coming up. But most importantly, not roll the dice on, you know, I'm sure most people would nod their heads on, yeah, I've done a month before, but it didn't really make much of a difference. I came back to where I am today. And that's the thing. There's a massive, massive difference between just not drinking or stopping drinking and actually changing a relationship with it. And that's why we created our programs.

That's awesome. And, you know, the other thing is too, is you mentioned this on the website, fatty liver. You know, people with their livers, they can really get messed up. And your liver will store 40, I think it says by the end of four weeks, you found participants in a study

had lost an average of 40% of their liver fat and 3K. Three kilogram of body weight. I mean, this is from Professor Moore. I think you're reading his study. It is the largest ever study into a four-week break from alcohol. And amongst those, you know, cholesterol low, had lost weight, I think on average, but it was four kilos or so, 40% reduction in fatty liver, blood pressure dropped. Right. Paul, we put into our community, what one reason would you give somebody to change their relationship with alcohol? It was 500 comments in 24 hours.

And I would reckon maybe, you know, sorry, 500 of those were unique. There was 750 comments, 500 are unique. And there's all sorts of things out there. Slept better. You know, my eyes are brighter, my air improved, which is a really important one for me, as you can tell. And anyway, so, but the thing is that most people don't realize. So stepping back again, Professor Moore said that, and this was published in the New Scientist, if this were a pill, if the results of a break from alcohol were a pill, then this would be a multi-billion dollar industry. Do you know what? I think about that for a second. I think about, you know, one in three people now taking antidepressants and yet alcohol is a depressant. I just put that two together. That's hilarious.

Flag that one up there for a second. So those two are completely contributing. And alcohol is so interesting because not only is it a depressant, but it's, it really feeds anxiety. Now I know, you know that, right? You wake up, hang over and you're like, fuck what I did last night. Oh God, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That anxiety has a long half life, right? So it, one, one session, right? Followed by another session, another session. That's a week long of anxiety. Then when you go again in the following weekend, you now increase that lull. And people don't realize, right, that they're taking anxiety medications. We had a woman who came to our program and she's like, I have been in and out of psychologists, psychiatrists.

I've been on every anxiety medication there are. I've had brain scans and nobody was like, oh my God, you need to stop drinking right and she was like i'm 90 days in and i've never had this reduction in a visit anxiety in my life that's awesome what is going on in the world so the point being there is this magical pill right this magical pill that can give you so much lost weight clarity energy your productivity back reduced anxiety i mean 500 different things if you ask my community and it's there at your fingertips ready for you to take you've just got to step over the line and take it so you can see i'm passionate about this subject i gotta tell you i i, I started just, you know, I'm going to skip tonight,

I'm going to skip this. And the more I got away from it, the better I felt, the better my body felt. You know, it scaled back from vodka to a couple of beers and just scaling back and stuff. So you have a community online where people can, you know, get some better peer pressure, some better peer influence. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah. So we provide programs at all levels, right? So we have a digital product and a program with a web app, and that gives you an access to community over 20, 20,000 strong community. And those, that sort of self-help element has helped, you know, hundreds of that, well, now over a hundred thousand people, just to be clear, a hundred thousand people in 138 countries and is, is, is a very, very, 100,000 people in 138 countries and is very,

very, very powerful. And so what we see with a lot of people that is like, okay, yes, they shift and many shift in a very big way. But the next level up is that actually I need a bit more support and I need a bit more connection. It depends on your environment and how you operate internally and all sorts of things like that. So we provide a group coaching program. We do 20 Zooms a week with positive psychology trained life coaches. And again, these programs, these are all less than what you're spending on alcohol, right? So what was important to me because people were like, this is a great idea, Rory, but you know, you should be free. And well, how do you create a business from something for free? First of all, I tried for a year and I put hundreds of thousands of pounds of my own money into this. And people said, we don't have a

business. You just have a very expensive hobby of helping people get sober. So I was like, well, hang on a minute. We, we should be able to charge a bit. So at that level, everything is less than what you're spending on alcohol. No way. Can you say you can't afford one year, no beer, because unless you're home brewing, in which case you should stop doing that. Right. So, so, and then we were like, okay, now we want to take things up to a higher level. Now we want to be able to produce programs, which, you know, are, are all in. And so up at the top level, we then have our one-to-one coaching programs. And finally, right at the top, this is our flagship program, Complete Control, which is that eight week program I was talking about.

That's awesome, man. And people need that. They need a community. They need the support, especially when all your friends are drunkards. I'm just kidding. There's three parts into here. So the first part is as our sense of identity.

So very early on, our relationship with alcohol gets linked intrinsically to our identity. It happens for different people at different times. College, military, these kind of behaviors, I'm starting to solidify who I am as a human being, where I stand in status in society, based on how I drink, how much I drink, how often I drink, what I drink. And that link to identity is very powerful, and it belongs to this whole social construct. And so what happens is, is we need to be parts of community, right? We must belong to the clan. And what people try and do is they move away from the clan and they try and change their relationship with alcohol. And the clan tries to, what's going on? Where are you going? Why are you leaving the clan? Come back, have another drink. That is just natural human

behavior. And meanwhile, we don't find anyone else to belong to and guess what next minute you're right back in the clan again because you didn't find that sense of connection somewhere else and so having a community is critical but then when we looked deeper at it we actually looked to the science of behavior change which is a sort of collection of the top universities working together to work out what is more likely to make an intervention, a health intervention or behavior change intervention stick. And what they discovered was that community is one of the core pillars, but there's also two other elements to it. And that is when the community is more like-minded, okay, so when they have more commonality, the chances of the intervention stinking,

sticking is much, much, much higher. So that's why we really ring fenced in business leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, because even at that level, right, I've heard from people say, oh, I went to AA, but I couldn't really be truthful about my situation because they just went, oh, poor you, boo-hoo, you know, crying to your golden cup. Not quite the same understanding, right? So yeah. So, so here it was about building a community, very close knit, but they could talk honestly, right? Really communicate about how alcohol shows up in business, how it shows up in the pressures of running a business, et cetera. And the third key part into this is that that close knit community that feels

that commonality needs to go the program together. And so this was why we then put these into cohorts so that we get a select group of people. And at this precise moment, the one next starting is on the 25th, and that's about 20 people going through the program at the same time together. And it creates massive change. So yeah, it's really, really interesting stuff, how our brain is mapped around our relationship with alcohol. And so how do people get together with you guys, sign up for the different programs you have and get aware of what's going on? Totally. So OneYearNoBeer is our main site, OneYearNoBeer.com. And there you will find

the challenge, which is Reset and Realign. That's a 90-day challenge to change your relationship with alcohol. And when you look through that, there's also the group coaching element and also the coaching element on there. If you want to just get control of your relationship with alcohol, you're not ready to stop drinking just yet. You'd like to try and moderate, cut back a bit, and you want support rules on how to do that. Then you go to I can take control.com and inside I canControl.com, you will find our program called Complete Control, which is specifically for business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders, et cetera, who want to transform the reasons why alcohol is showing up in their lives.

There you go. You know, it's a good journey I think people should go on. And like you say, it's really tied to identity. And so one of the issues that people have is you've got to change your mindset, right? You've got to change your mindset. You've got to reestablish rules, throw out some old rules. You know, I went through this too when I lost weight. I had rules of, you know, food is a reward. I had all these stupid rules. Exactly. You know, well, I'm going to, I'll buy a, I'll buy a 20-pack or 12-pack or whatever it was, a Mountain Dew, and I'll take it home.

But I promise I'll only drink one a day. It's in your house. It's in your mouth was one rule I learned. Exactly. And, yeah. Exactly. That's the other thing I learned that I equated from food to alcohol. I quit buying booze.

And it's like, okay, I do the same thing with Coke. I love, I love a good Mexican Coke because it's got the old original sugar in it. Here in America, we have all this high fructose corn syrup. I'm not sure if you guys have that over there. Oh yeah. It's kind of, not as much as you, but it's in everything. They put it in Wheaties. But you know, so I learned that if I, if I have a Coke, I get one of those. I get the pure sugar one. And I don't buy it. I don't bring it home. So if it's in your house, it's in your mouth.

And so if I get a hankering for Coke, I've got to do a bunch of work, get in a car, drive and go get it. Same thing with like chips, you know, potato chips or something. So, you know, I make myself work for it. And most times I'm lazy. So I'm just like, I don't want to go drive over there. I don't want to mess with the traffic and stuff. But yeah, you have to change the rules and the mindset if you want to talk about that a little bit. Yeah.

So I think there's quite a lot there because on the surface level, yes. And you can do a lot with that. And so, for instance, like the take control elements of it, it's creating structure and boundaries. It's changing some of the mapping in your head. So we've made all these maps in our head. Alcohol equals fun. Alcohol equals relaxation. Alcohol equals sexy time.

Alcohol equals, you know, switching off from the kids. It's just the math is there. And until we actually break that math and create a new map so that we understand that there is alternatives for fun and there's alternatives for relaxation that are better and healthier for me. We're always going to reach into that. But one thing I just want to circle back on and challenge is that you said I'm not an addictive personality. And I'm just going to challenge that for a second. What is addiction? Addiction is a compulsive behavior that you do even though you know it hurts you. Under that definition, we all have signs of addiction in our life, in things that you do even though you know it hurts you. Under that definition, we all have signs of

addiction in our life, in things that we do and stuff. And the thing about this is, is that work is an addiction. Our phones are an addiction, right? Binge watching Netflix is an addiction. Social media is an addiction. So it is absolutely prevalent and it's there. And I think that when something comes up, and in this case, we're talking about alcohol, but we could have been talking about Mountain Dew or sweets or chocolates. When something comes up, this is actually the gift. The gift is I actually need to do some of the work inside. I need to do the deep work. I need to find out what's going on and why this is showing up. And if I don't do that work, it will move into something else. It either comes back or it will move into something else. And this is the big thing. Gabor Mate says, you know,

he's not like, why are you an addict? Or let's not blame the problem. It's like, what is the pain? What is the trauma? What is the experience? And he firmly, and I followed that completely, is that addiction is the response to trauma. Now, the other thing about trauma is that people are like, what are you talking about? I don't have trauma. I'm fine. I've had a great life. But trauma is actually in the eye of the beholder. We all have trauma. It's just what you perceived in a moment and wrote about yourself. And we're all running these patterns all the time in our businesses, in our life, about who we are based on these past experiences. I just want to give one quick example of that. Okay.

So I went through this experience myself. And in the experience, I was a little boy. This is true. This is me having worked through therapist therapy back to this moment. I was four or five years old. I'm sitting at the top of the stairs. I'm crying my eyeballs out. I'm petrified. Now, upstairs is pure darkness, and I'm scared of the dark, and I just think, you know, it's nasty upstairs. And downstairs, I can see the light and the TV on, and mom and dad are in there, but I cannot go there because they'll just spank me on the bum and send me upstairs and I'm trapped. Okay. But in that moment, I decide some things about myself.

And one of the things I decide about myself is that I need somebody to save me. Now, wind forward to, I'm 40 years old and I run a company, 30 staff, and let's see what's, what, how it's showing up. Well, how it's showing up is that I'm recruiting furiously because I'm constantly looking for the next person to save me. And I'm looking and I'm creating situations in the business that means it's suffering and in pain. And I'm trying to reach quickly for experts and gurus and leadership team, all this thing, come and save me, come and save me, which means two things. One, I hire quickly and just grab people in. And two, I put way too much pressure on them to be successful. And that's just one element of how a moment in my life when I was younger is repeating pattern in my life. But what's amazing

about that example is that what we've shown is that when you are aware of it, it reduces its impact on you significantly. Most of this stuff is all subconscious. We just don't realize the patterns that we're running. So this is the work that we help people do is to recognize the patterns that they're running, how that's controlling them and where it actually came from. Really, really powerful stuff. So definitely. Again, it's not really about just changing a relationship with alcohol in the deeper level.

We want to use this excuse of changing a relationship with alcohol to really focus on shifting some of the things in our lives. Definitely. I mean, people need to sit down and look at what's impacting their identity, how they built it. You know, that's what I had to do with losing weight. I really didn't, you know, with losing weight, I went vegan-ese for a while, vegan-ish. There's, you know, 50 million variants of veganism. Vegan-ish. And I get hit every time I say, you know, a little bit of what it is. But basically, I just started eating more vegetables.

Like, even now, I have a salad every day. I prepare it. You might not like the dressing, vegan people. But, you know, I mean, I'm having a bowl of spinach, and there's a bunch of char in there and a bunch of other stuff. And then it has like just piles of all. I mean, I make a great salad. And that's kind of the real hack is to make it taste great. But in the end, you know, I mean, I mean, I mean, a bowl of spinach every day.

I mean, it's healthy as hell. It beats what I used to eat. And, you know, hacking the brain, hacking your identity, hacking all these stupid rules you make, you know, it's really interesting, all the crap you make. And half the time, just admitting that you might have an issue and saying, hey, you know, let's deal with this, you know, is sometimes half the battle. You know, once you identify it and just go, well, what could happen here? And after that, I just got really in tune with my body. And I was just like, I just really don't like how much weight I gain, how much water weight I gain after I drink. I don't like

the dehydration. You know, I started really tuning in my body and listening to like, and my body just doesn't like this. And I know it's bad for me. It's not healthy. I think you're lucky, though, for that. And I consider myself lucky for that as well. I think a lot of people probably don't listen or hear to those signs or don't get those signs. And I think a lot of people get themselves into trouble before those signs come along. Yeah. And, you know, I think the alcohol cost calculator, the math is not being done at all for so many people. In actual fact, I know because, you know, I was absolutely wild.

And so I would get myself in very precarious situations, whether it was surfing on an alcoholic island, piss drunk or driving them or, you know, whatever it was. It was just always wild, wild, wild stuff. In fact, I used to have this theme tune, which was basically the James song, getting away with it, all messed up. Because I was like, oh, wow. Just got away with that. You know, like that close to there.

And that was like fuel and everything else. And I think there comes a time where you're like, wow, I'm very lucky. Many, many, many people did not get away with it. And so, so often we roll the dice. Actually, I was talking to a really nice guy before this lovely interview and we were chatting along and he was like, well, it's not really too much of a price. Not really, you know, I'm not really drinking that. It's not really anything. And I just mentioned this side thing, you know, and then sometimes we just do these really stupid things. And then right at the

end of the call, he was like, you know, when you said that, I was like, you know, he's got you there. He's got you there. And I think that's like, that's kind of the stuff we brush under the carpet. You know, where did I end up last night? What did I do? Or what did I nearly do? You know, that's the stuff we need to be a bit more honest with ourselves about and then say, hang on a minute, you know, I think it's time I changed my relationship with alcohol. Yeah, and I had too many years of headaches too. You know, you'd wake up hungover and I played games with it.

And I'm like, you know, take a bunch of, you know, vitamin B before you go to bed, drink lots of electrolytes. You know, it's just all sorts of games to get over the hangover. And then finally, I'm just like, you know, there's a reason you're getting hungover, and there's a reason it hurts. Your body's just going, hey, man, knock it off. Quit fucking with us. You know, we're tired of you and your little drinking thing there you got going on.

And I got to tell you, I haven't had a drink in i don't know a year or two i quit during corona the covid crisis and i'm happy well done well done i think i i think you know after six months there's like a beer in the fridge and i'm like i think i'll kill that off and then i drank it i was like oh hell that's this is why i don't do this anymore i think i ended up like a little dehydrated over one beer and i was was just like, oh, man, stop it. Just knock it off. And, you know, the other funny thing is I started working out. I started going to the gym every day.

And then I started, you know, I'm in my late, I'm in my 50s. So, you know, we start lowering, get lowering testosterone. So I'm like, well, if I'm going to go to the gym, I better check my testosterone levels to see what's going on there. Well, then I found out that alcohol lowers your testosterone. So I'm like, well, if I'm going to go to the gym, I better check my testosterone levels to see what's going on there. Well, then I found out that alcohol lowers your testosterone. So if you're a man who's trying to go to the gym, who's trying to get buff for the wife or the girlfriend, you know, you're drinking

stuff that's making you fat, basically. Well, so it's more than what everyone is trying to lose weight, right? I mean, massive amounts of calories. Let's talk about this, right?'s more than everyone is trying to lose weight, right? I mean, we're all tested into massive amounts of calories. Let's talk about this, right? A glass of wine is an ice cream. A glass of wine is a single scoop of ice cream.

A pint of beer is a slice of pizza. So I just want to ask all the ladies out there, if you saw it as an ice cream, how often are you guzzling down on an ice cream? Honestly, you're not doing that. You're like, I can't eat the ice cream, but give us another glass of Chardonnay. Well, it is. They're the same, but we don't understand it. Secondary to that, it's also the way it's processed. It processes into sugars and then it causes into fat, but alcohol is absolutely poison. And so it must be processed by the liver than anything else. But guess what else gets processed

by the liver? Weight loss, fat cells, these fat cells get processed by the liver than anything else. But guess what else gets processed by the liver? Weight loss. Fat cells, these fat cells get processed by the liver. So you cannot process the weight loss until you've removed the alcohol out of your system. And so this is why weight loss is so much harder. And that's why you see so many people lose weight when they take a break from alcohol. So there are all of these complete paradigms or wrong word but paradoxes where people are like taking it for drinking it and yet it's the exact thing which is causing lifting or drumming up an issue in the first place yeah you know like for me right adhd alcohol's like the worst thing possible if you're if you're in hd it's just so unhelpful and you know it's crazy

so i i totally agree with you let Let's plug your podcast, too. You have a podcast that talks about stuff and helps support people. One Year No Beer Podcast, OYNB Podcast. We're currently on Series 2. We're just drumming up the exciting Series 3. And last week, we hit 1 million downloads. That is awesome, man. Congratulations.

Welcome to the big club, man. That is awesome. 0.05 percent of podcasts ever make it there so yeah that's most podcasts are complete i mean 90 the the this came from one of the big hosting companies is 90 or i'm sorry 80 percent of podcasts fail by episode 7 the other left over 20 80 of those will fail by episode 20 it's just a it's a pedestrian sort of business that i really get pissed off at after doing it for 13 years because you know it's just people i get people are like i have a podcast i'm like no you have an episode you know and they think that you just get a mic and somehow you're you know the first thing you always say to me is how do i make money doing this and i'm like i don't know maybe see if you're good at first it really takes a lot of skill yeah

i mean it's i'm still talking after 13 years but i have a big mouth being a ceo and everything i've always done so but even then you know i sometimes struggle with content and that's why we have wonderful guests like yourself on to help me you know know, sick of me after 13 years. They're like, we know everything about their Chris Voss. Fuck this guy. So there's that. I see an app on the website. Is there an app that deals with the community and interacts with them? The web app. Yeah. So when you sign up to any of our digital programs, you get access to the web app, which is where we house all the content and the, and part of the community and things like that so yeah lots lots lots more work to do there so you know we've we've raised significantly grown as a big

organization seen a lot of success but we are half a percent of what the vision intends to be i think what i always recognized was if you keep swimming upstream and downstream being i've been pouring whiskey on my cornflakes and i'm i need to go to detox and I've ruined my life, right? If you keep swimming upstream right to the point where the moment somebody questions their relationship with alcohol, can we be there? Like, what can we do to be there? And the moment somebody questions their relationship with alcohol, well, that's everybody on some Fridays, almost every Saturday, every Sunday and most Mondays. Right. And so when they are questioning the relationship with alcohol, what is that?

And so this is why we're working towards tracking and trackers. I think what's really interesting is what's happening with sweat. So sweat is the most accurate tracker after taking blood and then hair samples. And you can be able to help people see the sort of content they have in their blood, what impact that's having on them, help them start to reduce it, control it. Ultimately, at the front of all behavior change is awareness. And 90% of our drinking is in unawareness. We just brush it over, ignore it, or we've got blackouts. And so we keep it in that unaware stage. And we can help people change earlier, much, much it, or we've got blackouts. And so we keep it in that unaware stage and we can help

people change earlier, much, much earlier before they get to problems before they, you know, why did you need to get to the stage where it was showing up like that, Chris, if we got you much earlier and shown you in better data and shown you that it was impacting your sleep and shown you that it was, was costing you money in your business, right? Then you'd have been like, hang on a minute, what am I doing this for? This is nuts. That's what I want to do. I want to be able to swim upstream and help people earlier.

And those rules are so important. The rules you make for yourself are so important because you BS yourself, you con yourself. You make these rules that a lot of times are just excuses for bad behavior and to be an awful person. And sometimes you just haven't sat down. And like you say, you know, we talked about earlier in the show, you're like, well, I'm not going to be as fun, you know. And, you know, I equated it to, you know, the bedroom.

I seem to be a lot better in the bedroom with ladies. I've been a single guy all my life. I've always had to entertain because I've been a single guy. You know, I'm always at bars chasing skirts and, and, uh, you know, doing whatever it is I do. I lived in Vegas for 20 years. So, you know, the Vegas is a party town and, uh, you know, there's, there's all that stuff that goes into it. So, you know, it's the rules that you make. And now I don't need to do any of that. Now I'm more in control. Thank God.

Even when I drank, I never woke up with anybody I didn't want to see. I still was able to maintain my ice when I drank. But, you know, there was a couple, I think, big parties I threw where I woke up the next day and had messages going, you don't believe what you did. And I was like, really? You know, usually it was something I said to somebody. I was like really a jerk. Totally, totally. I know I wasn't an asshole, a drunk, but.

One of my absolute clangers I'll never forget is being at this party. My wife was a model and it was a sort of model party. But there was one of the models had a baby there. And so, you know, just had a baby, had a warm shower. So anyway, I was standing waiting outside, cooked. And this lady, you know, very attractive lady walks to me with a bump. So I'm like, oh, where do you do? Oh! She's like, oh, I'm not pregnant.

And then I tell my wife this. And she's like, oh, my God. She's the one, oh, the one with the eating issues and the problem cycle. And I was just like, I am never saying that ever again. Those words are never coming out of my mouth again. Yeah, well, at a model party, you just figure everyone's doing the coke and the meth.

That's what keeps them skinny. I used to go to a modeling agency in a bikini team. That's where the joke comes from. I love it. But yeah. So anything more we need to touch on or tease out before we go? No, I just, the only thing I really want to say to people is hopefully some of what I've said has resonated.

Whatever you do, if in the back of your head, you're asking yourself the question, am I drinking too much? You are. And I guarantee you that the other side, like taking some moments now to say, right, I'm going to think about taking a break or I'm going to change my relationship with alcohol. You know, it's a great time now. We're in October. We're coming up to December.

Crazy season, too much drinking, too much craziness. Like, give it a break now. We can help you, but just go and find out local help or anyone or whatever support or if you feel like you need to do it on your own, but just give it a shot. It's the one thing I can remind you. It is the one thing. It's like the one ring to rule them all. It is the one thing that will open up the door to everything else. It'll open up the door to the exercise, to the focus, to the clarity you want, to the productivity you want. I could keep going on. Just give it a shot. Give it a shot. I certainly highly recommend it, man.

You'll feel better. Your life will be better. You'll it, man. You'll feel better. Your life will be better. You'll get time back. You'll get life back. It's poison you're drinking, man. Just stop it. I mean, I hate to give people a plug, but, you know, pot is so much more healthier than alcohol. I've done so many stupid things and so many people have done stupid things on alcohol.

I don't want to give people another addiction, but I'll plug that. But, you know, you... I think there are many drugs which are much, much better. And Professor David Nutt proved it, right? He said the world's most harmful drug is alcohol by a considerable margin. I would agree. He literally takes it in society around. It's the most prevalent, and the impact on the body and the mind and everything else.

There are way better drugs to be consuming. And what's ridiculous is many of them are illegal but they're actually health and fat what we're proving is they're therapeutic they're helpful for exactly what we're trying to do with psilocybin mdma lsd these things are proving transformational for addiction and trauma therapy and helping people and illegal and it's it's to me, I tell friends now, I'm like, alcohol really should be illegal. But, you know, I think we tried that in the 1920s here in America. Yeah, you go to work out and then you drink.

And so that lowers your testosterone and you're trying to work out to get testosterone so you can build muscle. So you're screwed there. If you're a woman, you're trying to work out to get testosterone so you can build muscle. So you're screwed there. If you're a woman, you're trying to lose weight. Yeah, dude,

I learned that, man. You know, I'm old, man. Kind of preserve whatever we got going on. Probably one thing that's really important as well is not just to sing the, the,

the sober message. Cause that is, that is what makes people avoid it so much yeah i just want to let you know i drink i drink as much as i want whenever i want i just usually choose not to and i think that's what most people want that most people want a better relationship with it and that's my encouragement is is to get out there and get a better relationship with it and if you need any support whatsoever then just come and check us out because we are the experts. Try it.

What can happen? What can happen bad? Like, seriously, what can happen bad? You're going to feel better. Your body's going to start communicating to you that it loves you. It's like, we like you. We like this new you. You should keep doing this.

You're going to make it feel really good. And you're going to, you know, just get a better life. So give us the.com one last time so we can have people checking out on the interwebs. OneYearNoBeer.com and ICanTakeControl.com. There you go. Thank you for coming by, sir. We really appreciate it. Very insightful stuff and helping people improve the quality of their life.

Got to love it. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me on, and well done on your journey. Thank you. Well, it's a journey that process. I'm still trying to eat healthier and healthier. And, you know, every now and then we go out and eat a little bad. But, you know, we have the salad a day and I do intermittent fasting every day. We start the day with coffee, no sugar, no fat.

And we go as long as we can. We try and stick to a 16-8 where you eat for, or wait, you fast for a 16 and eat for 8. And, you know, we try and do that every day. Sometimes you get off. If you live alone, we, you and the dog or you and the mic? It's me and the dogs. And so it's easier. Are they fasting?

Huh? No, no. They eat whatever they want. But, you know, I usually feed them doggy treats, so I'm not tempted by what they're eating. I think I might have gotten really hungry one day and tried one. But, you know, there's those chew sticks. But it's easier for me because I live alone because if it's in your house, it's in your mouth. That's one thing I've learned.

And it's harder for people when they have a family and, you know, the family's dieting. So you've got chocolate and pop and all that crap and things. But me being single, it's easy to contain. And intermittent fasting, I've just gotten used to it. It's really healthy and easy. And you know what? You get more done. You're actually fired up and you have a little bit more energy because your body's like, we need to hunt for food. You're like, no, you're fine.

You'll live. So there you go. Thank you for tuning in. We really appreciate you guys coming by the show. I highly endorse it. Check it out because my life has been better for it. I wish I would have started earlier. Don't make my mistake.

And I've lost a lot of weight quitting booze. So there you go. I'm walking a thing for people hate me. They'll be like, you lost two to three pounds a day there for a while. You know, it's, it's, that's how much crap you're putting in your system and killing yourself. Be sure to go to all of our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Tik TOK, all those places that crazy kids are playing and we'll see you guys next time.