The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Plans He Has For Me: A 12-Week Daily Devotional for Freedom from Alcohol by Rose Ann Forte

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

The Plans He Has For Me: A 12-Week Daily Devotional for Freedom from Alcohol by Rose Ann Forte Are you ready to change your relationship with alcohol? Rose Ann Forte was, and she knew she needed an approach that was more meaningful. And she wanted a fresh start that kept her motivated! The Plans He Has for Me is a twelve-week guided devotional that will teach you: What stepping away from alcohol really does for the body and mind How to positively change the language you use to talk about drinking How to feel hopeful instead of shameful or restricted How to refocus your attention on what really adds value to your life How to stop living in the past, and be a forgiving support system to others! So how does it work? And what makes this approach different? Each day you’ll receive biblical guidance in the form of scripture, encouragement, and a daily prayer. The messages are short, but powerful. “The mindful minutes were what I found most affecting...these minutes should be lingered over when possible and considered. You may find surprising wisdom after letting them steep for a time in your mind." - Portland Book Review Trust that you’ll also find inspiration to create new habits, and motivation to stay the course! God has a much better plan for you – one of endless possibilities, hope and good health.

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. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com, the chrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my friends and family. We certainly appreciate you. The Chris Voss Show, my friends and family. We certainly appreciate you.

The Chris Foss Show. The family loves you, but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your mom does. Now go clean your room. Anyway, guys, welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate being here. As always, we are the greatest minds, the best guests of any podcast in the world.

So refer to your family and friends. Go to youtube.com, Fortes Christos, goodreads.com, Fortes Christos, and the big LinkedIn group, LinkedIn newsletter, all that crazy stuff we do over on LinkedIn. Today we have an amazing author on the show and brilliant insight into mine's life and some of the things that are affecting us in them

and how we deal with our issues and problems. She is the author of the amazing book you can find wherever fine books are sold. Remember, stay out of those alleyway bookstores because, you know, you could hurt yourself. You could trip over something and get mugged. She is the author of the book. August 19, 2022 came out.

The Plans He Has For Me, a 12-week daily devotional for freedom from alcohol. Rose Ann Forte is on the show with us today, and she's going to be sharing her forte in this amazing book, Insight and Life. You like how I played that? I love that. I love it. Her forte. So Roseanne Forte was a successful C-suite executive and ministry leader in the church. She, let's see here, she was a working mom of four and a social drinker.

Over the years, life stresses and a difficult marriage created an environment where her alcohol usage increased significantly. After the collapse of her marriage, her drinking further escalated, and she felt like a fraud with church and God. She was, AA was not an option for her in her mind. She'd already submitted to God and didn't want to call herself an alcoholic. When COVID-19 hit, she enrolled in a coaching program to put alcohol to the side for three months. Her experience was extremely

transformational and she recognized God's instructions embedded in the entire process. She became free of the psychological slavery of this habit through this process. She identified what alcohol had stolen from her life and understood that God had a better plan for her. She felt called to document what she learned with a daily devotional so others can experience God's promises through scriptural instruction with a hope and a better plan for the future. And she's written this amazing book. Welcome to the show, Roseanne. How are you? I am rosanne how are you i am wonderful how are you chris i am awesome this morning it's a glorious uh what would you call

it a wednesday morning people are watching this show going it's not wednesday uh because they download over 90 days and watch it but uh welcome the show give us your dot com so people can find you on the interweb yeah thank you for asking me about that because I follow you and I was expecting that question. So I developed a special URL just for your listeners. Oh, nice. Yeah. W W W dot the plans he has for me dot com slash boss. There you go.

Yeah. And there you can find a resource that i developed called freedom from alcohol and that will give you the five foundational principles to deal with what i call the psychological slavery of your alcohol habit nice nice and this is really really important issue that's going on. We talked in the green room before the show. How big of for 9% of the people in the world. And some of the statistics are astounding. I just read something in November of 22, that said one in five American deaths of people between the ages of 20 and 49 are alcohol related. That's 20%. That's big, right? I read another study that said there's been a 40% spike in liver cancer over the last 10 years. And that report came from 2019 before COVID. Cirrhosis of the liver is expected to triple three times what it is today by 2030 and now

i know that sounds like a long time away but that's only seven years right holy crap triple like it was just 220 it was just 2020 a couple years ago or one year ago or something i don't know it feels yeah and and people don't know this. It's a, it's a leading, it's a leading contributing factor to so many cancers, including breast cancer. And I am just trying to spread some awareness about this,

about the substance, you know, and take away the focal point on a shortcoming of the individual, because i think we've been lied to about what the substance really has to offer us yeah it's interesting we were talking in the green room about how we both grew up in that era where you know doctors were smoking in er rooms in hospitals you can watch some of the old clint eastwood are these the clint eastwood movie where he's in the hospital like everyone in San Francisco, like smoke in the dark.

You're like, I don't know what this, I don't know why this patient has cancer. And, uh, you know, we went through that whole kind of period there in the seventies where they started putting the warning labels on,

on, uh, cigarettes and stuff like that. And, you know, I remember my grandparents used to smoke heavily and they grew up in that age, but,

uh, one side of my grandparents did, but, uh, it up in that age but uh one set of my grandparents did but uh it was it was kind of interesting you know because they were putting out the thing and i remember the big everyone's like ah smoking bad but you know the same sort of uh warnings are on alcohol you know they're not government yeah they're not yet but i think they should be yeah there's some some warnings but not enough probably yeah yeah go ahead yeah and and uh you know i i've been through the journey with alcohol where in my 30s i started to drink heavily i was using as a crutch i was using it to bury some childhood trauma

and uh you know for me it was always a fuel it was a sugar it was a juice and so i'm like i'd be like oh man i'm tired I want to work some more. I've got, you know, this paperwork for running multiple companies. Uh, I have some booze. And for me, it was always, it was always rocket fuel. So like I could party all night long. I could, I could do whatever I wanted. As long as I was drinking, I just have fun.

I never got to a point where I was drinking in the morning. That was kind of a rule. You know, I never really drank midday unless we were having a business lunch or someone was buying a boba and uh but for the most part it was an evening sometimes it was kind of like a wind down to knock me out so I could sleep well and I thought I slept well on it but I didn't and I kind of abused it pretty hard for about 20 years uh and then I kind of reached a point where my body was like you know what this isn't funny anymore the hangover started coming hard hard and I'd have three beers and have a hangover and, and it just wasn't fun anymore. You know, one, one couple hours of fun on Friday night would be

three days of just body drag. And I started really feeling it in my body. And so, uh, and so I started making a difference in my life and I started weaning off. And I kind of went through a journey like you did with COVID where I was just like, hey, man, some stuff needs to go to improve the quality of my life. Or, you know, I wasn't sure if we were all going to die with the thing that was going around. And we were all kind of like, I think, contemplating life. And you kind of went through that journey too in COVID where you kind of looked at your life and wrote this book. Yeah, there's usually an event that happens where we go, okay, I'm done. And for me, the event was COVID-19.

But unfortunately, when it comes to this, I don't know if you had an event that really had you snap out, but my experience is like, there's a diagnosis or there's a problem with a relationship, a car accident, a DUI, like, okay, now I've got to, like, you know, you have a problem for years before you're ready to go, okay, we're done. And I knew, you know, it sounds like you understand this, but I call it the mental gymnastics. Only after five, only on weekends, only with other people, only on holidays, only for Valentine's Day, you know. And then, you know, what generally happens is you just start breaking your promises to yourself. And for me, that started really affecting what I call my, you know, my mental health and my self-confidence, my self-esteem was going down. And, you know, I have coached.

I used to be an executive coach for this. I now just do this more faith-based coaching. But there comes a point in really high-performing people's lives where you go, wait a minute, my health, like I couldn't control my weight. My mental health, what's wrong with me? I'm like a go-getter. I can do things. I can put my mind to it and I can do it. Why can't I do this? My blood pressure was going up. Just, you know, I was, I think I was agitated. And I used to believe that was just me. It was me going through withdrawals, know so just so much happier now and um but it's hard it's you know it sounds like you were able to control it on your own but most people you know really struggle and need some outside help with that you know i think uh and this is my opinion

so i'm not a psychologist so let's's make that disclosure. Please see a psychologist or see someone for therapy like Rose. But what you speak to, and I like what you said about the excuses that we make for stuff. And we do that. What you've written about and talked about and we're going to talk about today, it translates to so many other things. Because I was doing that same sort of excuses not only with booze, but I was doing that with food. And sometimes we do that for the procrastination and things that sabotage our success or things that, uh, you know, we, we don't want to do in life that maybe block us. You know,

we make these excuses, you know, Oh, well, you know, like when I lost weight and and i still losing weight and intermittent fasting and stuff you know i used to have these food rules and regulations and i had the same with alcohol like you mentioned where it's like well you know it is friday night taiwan on saturday night it's you know taiwan on and this is midweek taiwan on uh you know i'm just gonna i'm gonna have a i mean i was doing at at one point about half a bottle of vodka a night. Now I'm a big guy. At one point I was, I had reached a point of 350 pounds.

So, but I've always, I've always had a high drug tolerance too. So it takes a lot like aspirin. I even have to take a lot of aspirin just to get it to kick in i for some reason drugs all kinds of drugs have a high tolerance for me which is probably good because i would probably do harder drugs if i if they were easily if they easily affected me and they don't like you know stuff like cocaine it's just not even worth taking for me it just gives me a bad post nasal drip and coffee and i i think I tried that twice and I was just like, this is really annoying. I'll just go back to booze. But, um, you know,

what you talk about, those excuses that we make, the rules that we make and usually end up breaking, uh, are kind of the ways we self-con ourselves. You know, we, we, you know, we, you know, it's the same thing with, you know, new year's resolution. Oh, I'll make this new year's resolution. I'll keep it this year. I haven't kept it for the last 50 years that I've been making resolutions. But yeah, you're right. There's, there's sometimes that, that sort, the blinds were shut. I was by myself and I was drinking and I was like, oh, this is not good. And, and, you know, I want to, I want to share this because it's, it's real for a lot of people that have an alcohol problem. And I, if it wasn't for my faith, I probably would have done something to leave the earth. Like I was done. I just didn't believe I had anything left to give. And I would just be praying like, take me God, I'm kind of ready,

right? If the bus comes by, I'm good, right? I want to be with you, right? And, but apparently that wasn't the case because when COVID came, and I was, we can all remember this picture, right, of the news and the bodies in Italy, and it's just zooming into the US. And I said, well, even though I'm okay with going, I don't want to go on a ventilator in a hospital without my family. So that was the defining moment that because alcohol, again, I don't know if people know this. I did know this, that alcohol suppresses your immune system. It also suppresses your lung function. I used to be a super heavy smoker, two to three packs a day.

I was just like kind of a pedal to the metal kind of person. And but I quit like 17 years ago. So my lungs were not in great shape. And you know, your immune system and your lung function were two things you really needed to do to survive COVID with. So I just decided that's it, I need to quit. And I was scared into quitting. And I was doing it on my own for two to three weeks, but then I entered a coaching program. And I just, I know looking back that even though I thought at the time that would have been the last time I drank, I don't think without that program, I would have understood the transformation that was available and the habit,

the new neurological habit that I needed to create to just transform my way of thinking around it. So there you go. I mean, it's, and it's, it's different for other people. I think what I started to preface earlier where I'm not a psychologist is I

think, I think there's some people that have addiction. They have, they have a, you can, and again that i've heard different stories on this but there are people that are sometimes born with the gene that's passed down from their parents or maybe it's learned behavior yeah call it what you want

i'm not a psychologist but i i've talked to my friends and and for me there was always in my opinion let's put it that way i'm not a a psychologist. Legal disclosure there. My opinion was there were people that have addiction. They have genetic or a DNA addiction to something. They can't put it down. They jones if they don't have it. They shake. I've seen my friends visually shake if they don't get their hit of smoke or whatever the drug of choice is. For me, I was using it as an abuse, as a crutch.

I wasn't ever addicted to it. I didn't want it in the morning. I didn't want it midday usually. Um, and for me, I was using it as a fuel, but I was, I was abusing it because I was abusing my body.

I was, I was, I was basically taking, you know, the club to myself. Um, and you know, you,

you con yourself. You're like, Hey, I'm using this for fuel. I'm getting some work done i've got i've got some more files or accounting i'm going to do in the companies and i'm going to have a drink and that's going to give me a couple more hours then i'm going to sleep like a baby and somehow i had this dummy idea that i slept good on it and people are just like you

don't sleep good like i do but uh um you know it reached a point for me. I, early on years ago, I had a girlfriend who, uh, suffered from genetic alcoholism. I'm going to call it. And her father had the same weekend alcoholic sort of thing. She wouldn't drink during the week and neither would he, but when he would come home during the weekend from Friday, when he came home, he would go down into his, you know, one of those old tiki bars in the 60s and 70s and drink himself to oblivion for the whole weekend until monday and then he would get up and be a functioning banker for monday through friday and she mirrored that whether through addiction or habit but she

definitely had an issue where when she would drink she would physiologically change it was like dr jekyll and mr hyde right her face would change like everything about her would change and instead of being a fun sort of drinker like i don't know if you were but i was um she would become very angry and very and very aggressive and she would amp up to a whole different level it was it was like two different people and she had a problem with addiction where if she couldn't get to it she would drink whatever she could whether it was vixen equal or even hairspray um she would drink it if she needed it um and so i saw that what that life was like and she you know i eventually moved on and had to move on and she eventually died of technically alcoholism she died of potassium deficiency

because alcohol depletes your potassium and takes the vitamins out of your system and she eventually died of that and it was a very sad story that her daughter found her and you know i was i was close to her daughter and and and we're still friends this day but seeing the damage that took uh played a toll and so i think that's important. You know, she, she had reached several crisis points in her life of going to AA, being put in a facility to try and control her rehab. She almost killed someone with a car drunk driving, you know, she had to have the whole thing installed.

So I watched that go, but it really didn't affect me. And I went on a journey with my health where I was losing weight. I was becoming veganese. I was eating more healthy, trying to lose weight. And the reason I was drinking all the time, it just reached a point for me where I was like, I, I, I was just like, I'm tired of that hangovers. You know, you get older and you can't, you can't do it. And I mean, I would have three beers and have a hangover the next morning.

And I started listening to my body and I would feel just how it would drag for three days, the dehydration, the water gain. You know, I'd feel bloated the next morning after drinking whatever night I was drinking, it's three days of drag. It hurts. I love that you're bringing this up because that is a really big part of changing your relationship with alcohol which is what you did right um there is the substance abuse part the substance um but once the substance is out of your body it's a neurological habit it's something we go to because we're used to it and the only way that we can change our relationship with it is to develop an awareness of how it's treating us. We have what I call this romanticism about it that does not equate with reality. And what I try

and do in the devotional and my free resource and in my coaching is solved for what's called, and I'm sure you know this, cognitive dissonance, which is believing two competing thoughts about the same thing. Right? I love alcohol. I need it to have fun. I can't go on vacation without it. It's like, it won't be romantic. I'll lose all my friends versus, oh my gosh, I have hangovers. I can't sleep at night. I'm gaining weight. This is so bad. I got to quit, right?

Which is true, which is true. And you have to just remind yourself and develop this awareness. And it sounds like that's exactly what you did. You developed an awareness of going, wait, this is not meeting my goals. I have different goals for myself for the future. And, you know, faith-based, I tell people that they, you know, God has a better plan, get out of his way. But, you know, so there is a better plan, there is a better life and having that hope. But yeah, I mean, I've, I've coached people out of rehab,

you've got to solve it medically first and get, you know, detox and have your body go back into a state of homeostasis. but then you're still left with the habit, the thought patterns, and those need to change. Yeah. And like you say, what you're talking about with these excuses and habits and the ways we kind of BS ourself through, you know, well, you know, whatever,

and have a little drink or, you know, I would always be like, yeah, I'll just have one glass and then see if little drink or you know it always i would always be like yeah i'll just have one glass and then i know that one i heard that one before in my head just like well i'll just i'll just pour a little i'll just pour a little cup more of of the of the vodka there i'll just i'll just have half a shot than I normally have. And then you're just like, ah, fuck it. And I used it for a fuel. I think, I don't know, it turned to sugar for me, which I think it does for a lot of people in the system,

if I understand it correctly. And so it was a fuel. I mean, I could literally, you know, I was better at everything when I did alcohol. I would party. I would, you know, I could stay up later. I had energy. I used to go to Sundance. Sundance is like night-long parties all night long. You do parties at the clubs, and then it goes up to the houses in the hills in Sundance. I think there were some times where I spent whole weeks being drunk. Then I I get up the next morning, pound a Rockstar, and then keep going.

And then I started experiencing, as I got older, dehydration. And I'm like, what's going on? And I started crashing physically. And my friends are like, you need to hydrate. You need to take different things to hydrate yourself. And I'm like, why? And they're like, you're getting old, stupid. It doesn't work anymore and uh good dehydrates your brain and your brain is the operating system for

everything in your body um yeah i mean it's how we breathe how our heart beats uh you know how we respond to things how we think and that's why when we move it to the side or mental clarity, we can sleep better. We just have more energy. But yeah, I know what you're saying because when I drank, I could stay up really late and now it's 10 o'clock is late for me. I'm kind of getting to be that same way. But you know, one thing I didn't understand is it is a toxin to your body. It is not a natural compound.

It is a toxin. And the reason you get drunk and you get that wild feeling in your head is because you're poisoned. You poison yourself. And I had to really come to terms with that. The other thing that I didn't understand at the time or really didn't want to accept, I suppose, was it really affects as a man your testosterone. And we already have a lot of problems as men in this world where we have so many of these estrogenic chemicals in plastics and everything else, soaps and everything else, chemicals. I mean, it's so bad that women are getting their periods earlier. And there's so

much estrogenics in our food and chemicals, plastic, and all this stuff that we're exposed to. We already have a low testosterone level. And so it drops your testosterone immensely. And I've found since I quit drinking and also getting a lot of estrogenics out of my soaps and cleaners and everything that my body's exposed to, it's done just great things for my testosterone. I'm 55 now. And so men at my age in our late 40s and our 50s, our testosterone falls off heavily. In fact, you really want to go get tested and stuff. And if you're a man and your testosterone drops off, you start having problems with

cancers and other things that come up women especially too if they if they if their estrogen comes up or down there's issues that and uh i just started looking at it i'm like you know it's really time i quit i just and the money i was spending too jesus oh buying a buying a bottle of vodka that you know, some nice Tito's or something. I think it's like 40 bucks a pop for a liter. I cannot believe. And I try and tell people that, like, the money that I save because I like going, you know, fine dining is a thing. And I go out to dinner and I order whatever I want. And without the alcohol, I think alcohol adds like 60 percent

and I went out I live in Scottsdale so I live by some resort and I told I brought a friend out I love going to the happy hours at the resorts because they're beautiful resorts and they're right around the corner from me so when I have, I go there and I bought my friend a drink. It was 20 bucks. I was like, 20 bucks for one drink. So, um,

yeah, that was, it just, every time I go out now, I'm grateful for the meal I got without the added unnecessary expense. And I'm also grateful to drive home and not have to worry about, Oh yeah. You know,

you're like, am I buzzed? Am I over the thing? Uh, what if I get pulled over? I might be at the edge, you know? Yeah. Let me just be honest.

I was always probably more than, and I'm just so grateful that he didn't kill someone else. I didn't kill myself. You know what I mean? I just, I look back and I'm like, what I could have done that I didn't. I just, again, as you say, wasn't not honest with myself about the problem that I had created. Yeah. And I think that's, you identify something that we do with any sort

of addiction, food, not, not meeting our goals, not procrastinating or procrastinating, you know, not doing what we need to do. Um, you know, pick your addiction, pick your problem, pick your issue in life. You know, you're not focusing on what you do. And I, and I can see looking back how much it affected the quality of my life how much it really affected my performance and the whole time i thought i was doing really better with it it really wasn't and you're not in a healthy state of mind you know when you spend the next day just hung over and you know i started losing days that was the other problem i would lose the next day and then for three days i would just feel the drag my body was dehydrated the bloating and then i'd have to

i'd have to lose all the bloating and and you're just your body was just going through this three to four day cycle of of uh you know you hit it hard for a couple days then you're feeling it it just more and more it would become prevalent and then you know sometimes losing a couple days you know being hungover and you're just like i'm gonna go nap for a while and i hurt and the brain and the kidney you know it felt like someone kicked me in the liver the next morning you know and you're just like what am i doing to myself i mean and i would go through the cycle where i'd be like, okay, I'm going to quit drinking for a day, a few days and clean up. And then,

and then I just go do it again. And I'm just like, what are you doing? Like two, three hours of fun is three days of hell. How many times did you quit before you were able to be successful with it though? I don't,

I, it kind of just wound down for me. Like there wasn't any moment of clarity it just wound down where i was just sick of it and you know part of it was getting healthier and eating healthier and veganese and i you know i was losing all this weight but then the problem was i kept trying to lose weight but when you're drinking you know your body responds to the drinking and the hydration from it by loading up on, on, uh, on, uh, water. And so I would get this bloating for like two or three days that I'd be carrying where

your body's trying to retain all the water it can to fight off. Well, this idiot wants to drink for a day or two. Let's, uh, make sure we load up on water. And, you know, so my weight would fluctuate and i just would feel it more and more and just getting in tune with your body is really important and i just you know i think i i'd overcome the lies i've been telling myself with food and the excuses like we talked about and uh going on that journey you know you talk in your book let's let's get to some of this you talk in your book about how, you know, God and the importance of religion to you.

You know, I think most of my audience knows I'm an atheist, but people need things to go through life. They need things to experience. And certainly I understand the journey of, you know, AA is really big into this, that sometimes you've got to your yourself in the hands of of a higher power of of of you know you you kind of have to realize that maybe you don't have all the answers because the answers you're using aren't working clearly right right so uh let's talk about why that's important to people that are dealing with these issues and how much a difference it made for you. Yeah. And, you know, so I was faith-based and I did love Jesus and read the Bible all the time. But as we all make excuses and see the word, we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, God, that's patience. That's a really nice thing, but I don't have it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, God, you know, drunkenness, but how do I survive? You know,

it's just, I convinced myself that there, you cannot live life without alcohol. I had started at 13 to fit in high school, to have fun. I think you mentioned like the business, the occasional drink at lunch, Monday night, happy hour conference. You know, I used it for romanticism with my then husband. It was pervasive. And then I had a stressful job, a difficult marriage, kids, I'm trying to balance everything. So now it's stress. I need it after. And look at our TV shows, right? Any TV show, you just crack and open the beer or open up the glass, beautiful glass of wine to relax after work. I mean, I fell into all of those things. But all the time, I think you're, for me, it was like, I know I'm capable of more. I know I was meant to capable of more i know i was meant to do more i was

know i was created to do more i know i have gifts and i wasn't using any of them i had literally lost all of who i was by engaging in these things and so from i went through the secular program and I learned all these concepts. Of course, I was praying to God, oh, please make this go away. I promise you, God, I'm not going to do that. I'm not only breaking and I transformed like I couldn't believe. And I'm like, why? What? Like, I'm trying to go through the church to get this transformation and I have to go outside the church to be transformed. Having said that, most of what I learned in the secular program, I recognized as biblical principles like gratitude and, you know, renewal of your mind.

There's this concept now of neuroplasticity where years ago, right, we used to just think there's a diseased brain and you have to live with it and you just can't change it. But now science will share that you can change it. Oh, excuse me. I lost my thing. So I was just going, wait, you know, there's a scripture that says put on the full armor of God. That was another like, yeah, yeah, yeah, God, that's a really nice concept. But then when I, it's like the difference between knowing and doing, right? But when I started examining it and like the first principle of putting on all the armor of God is putting on

the belt of truth. Well, now we're talking about what we've been talking about in the show, right? Is this is about awareness and the truth of how it's affecting you and exposing the lie that you're telling yourself. You know, and as I went through the process, I just felt more connected, more, I developed purpose. I think that purpose is to show light to others, to show that there's a possibility for something more, to know that you were created for something with a gift. We all know we have a gift. Everyone knows we have a gift everyone knows they have a gift and whether or not it's something like i wish i had always done or i don't have time to do that so in this 12-week process i really encourage people to just find that gift of innate gift

because they and use it because that's what creates joy. And because now they have time. Because before, you've summarized it so well for me, before people would spend their time drinking, recovering from drinking, and thinking about how to quit drinking that's a lot of time yeah and the thing is so people can quit for you know a month by white knuckling it but then they're just looking forward to drinking on day 31 you know or day 41 or day 32 if it's dry January or sober October, day 41 if they're quitting for Lent. So what happens is after the first month, you start getting a little, like you're excited the first month, you do it, and you're like bored.

Like how am I going to live like this? And so we really talk a lot about finding your gifts and enjoying life with things that you were created to enjoy it for. And using those gifts to help other people, to give light to other people. And, you know, I just really want people to go through that transformation so that I give them a choice to choose. It's 12 weeks. And most programs, I think, you know, if you go to rehab, go to AA, a lot of programs are like, well, you've got a problem. You've got to do this forever. And instead of making them victim to it,

I want to empower people with the ability to choose. And that's exactly what you've done, right? You choose going forward because life is so much better yeah go ahead i i yes i started sampling i mean i it basically dwindled down for me where i was just like i'm tired of feeling shit i'm tired of the hangover the next day and i'm losing a i'm losing days like it would be i started looking at my week and i'm losing a whole, I'm losing days. Like it would be, I started looking at my week and I'm like, okay, I'm drinking, you know, a half a bottle of vodka every night, every other night. Um, and I'm losing days. Like I'll lose the next day. And sometimes I'll lose the second day,

you know, where I'm just not functioning. And I was just like struggling to function. I was like, I need to do work. I need to work on my business. And, and yet I would go to sleep. It would, it would hurt the podcast. I would go on a podcast and I'd just be like drained, dehydrated, beaten up. My brain wouldn't be in focus. I couldn't be as funny anymore. And, you know, I started backing it off. I'm like, okay, well I'll downgrade from vodka. I'll, I'll just drink beer, which is just awful because beer and me just don't work together. All it does is make me want to pee like all the time. And it just goes, I don't know why vodka has a different experience for me.

But so I was like, okay, I'll drink beer. And then finally it just got to the point where I think like three beers sat in my fridge for like a year. And I just, it just dwindled down for me. And it wound down to where I was just like, and then I, you know, I'd have a year and i just it just dwindled down for me and it wound down to where i was just like uh and then i you know i'd have a beer and i'm like this tastes like garbage and and i would still get hangover and i'm like okay we're just not screw this man i'm tired of everything hurting my body hurting you kind of reach an age you know i'm 55 now when you wake up at 55 at least for me stuff hurts it's like it's like spin the wheel pain day of like a knee here, stub your toe there,

uh, back here, you know, and I'm, I'm doing pretty good for my life, but you know, you just kind of stuff doesn't work right anymore. And you're just like, you know, you've got to have, I gotta, you know, there's a lot of coffee that has to be drinking and, you know, you've got to have, you know, there's a lot of coffee that has to be drinking. And, you know, you've got to hydrate. And I've got all the salts and, you know, all the crap to keep me going. And 50,000 tons of vitamins. And so it just kind of wound down for me. And, you know, you've spoken this.

You quit telling yourself the lies. You quit telling yourself the cons that you're doing to yourself. And you get honest, right? It's harder than you think for people. You are an inspiration, I think, for people that can do it on their own. But a lot of people secretly suffer with this. Like, why can't I stop? Why can't I do this?

They're beating themselves up. And while they're beating themselves up, it's getting worse. They're drinking more because it's like, bother i'm a loser anyway you know and um you know it's like this slippery slope and as you mentioned it can well it it does depend on our genes some people can get trapped in this in the first year or two and very young as as the statistics I share that statistics of 20 percent of deaths alcohol related between ages of 20 and 49 that's like that's early on I'm I'm 60 something unfortunately but I feel very young and um but I you know it took took me decades to get there. But eventually we'll all get there because, as you say, it's a substance and it eventually starts controlling us as opposed to us controlling it. And I love the fact that we're just here talking about it and not making it shameful because that's, you know,, um, be a heavy, heavy smoker and I quit

and I quit kind of the same way you quit alcohol. It was, um, because it was killing me. I didn't, I wasn't a cigaretteaholic, a smokeaholic. I didn't recover from it. Um, I just, those words for me, AA is a very, there's many 12-step programs out there that it is actually known to be one of the best methodologies for, you know, getting through substance abuse problems. However, I'm trying to address those people that thought like me with the words and the shame that goes with the words. And I want to talk about and bring light to the fact that people are starting to notice. The health community is starting to notice. I'm just seeing more and more articles, especially since COVID. people are starting to notice the health community is starting to notice. I I'm just seeing more and more articles,

especially since COVID about the severity of the alcohol problem. I think we are going to see commercials disappear eventually. I think that the warning labels are going to get far more severe about, you know, the risk of cancer. I think, I think it's going to follow the trajectory of, of cigarettes. I don't know if you know this, but at Superbowl Heineken ran its first non-alcoholic beer commercial. That is big.

That's a recognition that some, that people want something different. You know, people are people want something different you know people are looking for something different yeah and and and more of a healthier option too you know i honestly i i did wind down at myself but i probably could have used a third-party intervention to really kick me in the head or go hey man you know i i went uh 20 years ago to my girlfriend's a meetings i went to two a meetings with her because she wouldn't go and i was like look i'll go with you as a support and you know back then i wasn't very drinking heavily because i was seeing what she was doing um and i think i was in my late 20s and i said look i'll go to AA with you. And the stories at AA were horrifying.

It was, it was, and it, it was actually really good for me because it made me realize that I had to make a choice of her with my life. And I had met one of her friend's husbands through AA who also had a problem and she had his own business and her, married to her with kids was very destructive. And, um, and I remember we, we had to do a mortgage one time because she ran off and she was very angry and violent, uh, and, and, uh, her psych physiology would change with alcohol. And I remember one time she ran off to, she beat him and the kids and she ran off to Wendover, Utah, which is kind of like a little Vegas, uh, up there in Nevada.

And, uh, she wrote a, uh, she basically wrote a check with a casino for $130,000, $130,000, $150,000 against their house. Well, nothing really against their house, but she's, she basically did a credit check and, and wrote a for 150 grand, and she blew in a weekend drunk as hell. And I had to do the mortgage to bail him out for his equity in his home to pay off the casino. And I remember he sat down with me, and he goes, look, this guy that you're engaged to, you need to make a choice with your life, but you need to understand that you are going to live with this for all of your life. This is going to be your life. She's going to fall off the horse. She's going to go through ups and downs. It's going to be costly.

There might be lawsuits. Certainly, a few years after we broke up, she almost killed a guy, which probably would have been a lawsuit for my company and my money. And she sideswiped him, almost killed him, broke, I think, his leg and his arm. And she had one of those things installed in her car. But I had to make a choice in my life where I had to say, do I want to live this way? Do I want to have this person's problems in my life? Or do I need to go and do my

own thing? And so we all have those choices to make, but it was interesting to me that the horrors of what I heard in AA didn't, still didn't awaken me to like, hey man, this can really go bad. You know, I would hear these stories of people that would lose everything, their wife, their kids, their home, their business, everything. They'd be living under a Vidoc in a box. Then they do all this work, spend years recovering. And, um, you know, one day they would walk back into a bar, uh, just have one drink. And then they're back under the Vidoc again. And it was, it was horrifying and sad and just crippling the stories I would hear.

And, but it helps sober me up at least to living a life that she had been living and with addiction. And she, she, I mean, she really had a hard time. She was in and out of rehabs. You know,

her mother would constantly deal with it and it was just sad. It was, it was hard. It was a hard life. And so to me, this is a really important subject because, you know, whether you're going through that extreme or a minor version of it,

you just need to recognize that this isn't the best thing for your life. It isn't the best thing for your health. It is a toxin. You are toxifying yourself. And, you know, I went through the fantasy of, of buying wines and selling them in my house and shipping them in from

California and that whole thing. And it was great. It was, it was kind of fun and it was interesting. I love that. You kind of call yourself into like, well, I'm living this sophisticated life.

You know, I had the big bar at the house. I threw the parties, you know, and, and, you know, you're like,

well, I'm being sophisticated with the Dom Perignon and the expensive stuff. You know, I'm not an alcoholic and, you know and and uh you know you're like well i'm being sophisticated with the dom perignon and the expensive stuff you know i'm not an alcoholic and you know i all those sort of silly things that you do but man i gotta tell you being on the other side and not having to wake up with a hangover being able to wake up feeling energized having energy for the day it is so much funner and nicer oh thank you thank you for saying that that is actually foundational principle number five my freedom from alcohol resource but yeah it's it's experiencing um the prizes of running the race and you know just you want to tell people

you know i actually start with like let's recognize what this has cost us. And I love your story about the casino. So we talk about this in coaching a lot. Every now and then, it's like, what's the real cost? And it's just hysterical about the things that the things that people don't realize, well, I was a cheap drink, like $10 a day. And I'm like, I just that in and of itself is hard for me to understand. But then we, we kind of went through it. And I'm like, well, how about, you know, when you go out to the restaurants, or vacation, or, you know, this all adds up, you know, you're buying somebody else a

drink. And she's like, Oh, yeah, there was that time at the casino where I was too drunk to get home. And I had to buy a hotel room. I'm like, how about the money you spent at the casino? You know, because I used to do that, like drinking, smoking and casinos go really well together and um i keep doing something to my earbuds but um you know it's costly when you start adding that up and she's like well yeah wait a minute then i used to take my elderly mother out once a week to lunch and i'd order a couple of martinis for me a martini for her. She had dementia. And I'd finish her martini. She goes, it was an $80 lunch.

Yeah. Every week. And I'm like, we just went from $10 a day to at least $40 a day. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And getting back to your point about, like, this is amazing. That's what I want people to realize is the lie in your head when you have a substance and you and I get it, you get it.

When we say I can't have fun without it. I can't be romantic about it. I can't go on vacation without it. I can't have friends without it. I just want, I just want to sit right here today and tell you, you're being, you're lying to yourself and I know it and I understand it and I feel it, but give it a shot. Like put it aside for 12 weeks long enough, not to detox your body for 30 days long enough to experience all these amazing benefits and then you go wow my life really is better which is what you're which which is exactly what you're saying yeah and i i think about it now and you know there were so many i was losing like two or three days a week and i was and i was buying uh 40 bottles sometimes more of tito's vodka so i'm buying expensive vodka then i'm mixing it with all sorts of crap uh you know

sometimes you know whatever i had in the house sometimes you run out of your mixer and you're like pouring nasty stuff into it just to you know take the edge off i just did it on the rocks did you really there you go you know and i was playing all. I just did it on the rocks. Did you really? There you go. You know, and I was playing all sorts of games with myself. I'm like, you know what? I'll go do bourbon. I'll go do scotch. And then, you know, I was always trying to search for the perfect hangover or non-hangover.

Like at one point I was doing tequila with this tequila silver because it was the closest thing to a plant it was supposed to give you less of a hangover you know all sorts of games and then i had a whole i had a whole menagerie of con that i was doing at night so when i would get drinking i would take vitamin b i take my vitamins i drink like a half a gallon of water all this hydration uh pills and stuff that you're supposed to take for hydration and, and stuff. And I'm like, I'll play this game and it kind of worked for a little bit.

Like it would be like, okay, the hangover is not as bad. So if I just take my little cocktail of vitamins the night before, you know, and then people are like, Hey, if you, you know, you drink and then you take a glass of water and then you take a drink and then you just ask the water. I had so many games i was playing to to beat the hangover and finally i just like you know hey you know what you're old your body doesn't recover as well you're you've you've kind of worn ground down the machine and yeah just and and to me life is richer like getting up uh doing what i want enjoying my podcast enjoying

other things it's so much richer and never having to worry about downtime where i'm just like you know the whole day where the next day you're just like i'm just gonna lay in bed in the fetal position and everything hurts my brain hurts you know you're trying to and you know all the tylenol you're taking if you're really familiar with tylenol and c to fit that's bad when you combine it with alcohol yeah yeah i mean it can kill your liver it's really awful medicine for you and so you know i just it just i just reached a point where i'm just like i'm just not doing anymore um so this is great and i'm glad you coach people through it because people probably need to reach out i mean you can do the wind down thing that i do but i probably abused myself for way too many years when really i should have said hey maybe we should call in somebody to help me and coach me

and kick me in the head a little bit um and and take this on because you know sometimes you're not the best person to fix your problems well and you know, like you went to the AA meetings and people talk about it. And I talk, you know, I do a lot of research, whether it's scientific research or just people that haven't drank in 30 years. And I'm like, well, what made the difference? And a lot of times they're not going to AA anymore.

And I'm like, well, what was the biggest part of it? And 100% of the answers, the other people and the connection of the other people doing the same thing. And I want to share that because that's what I'm trying to do is like, let's all just admit this is like, it's controlling us, we're not controlling it. And let's get together and talk about it. And so we don't feel alone. Do you know when I talk to people and I know what I do, a lot of people will come up and go, I don't even like drinking. And I order a drink at the bar just to fit in. And it's just this pressure to drink when you're, you know, and mixed company and i i find that now when i go out to social situations i give i i have people either say wow i wish i could do that like come to a bar and not drink

or other people choose not to order a drink because i'm not you know you're giving people permission to not drink who don't want to drink anyway. So it's really is a great group discussion, you know, and, and getting out of your head. Yeah. Getting out of your head is a big part of this.

Yeah. And you're right. People do that social drinking because they, they feel peer pressure. You know, I've had friends that have alcohol problems and they order a duals or, you know, the non-alcoholic stuff. And I've had people talk about the shame of that. And you know what?

I don't, I just, maybe I just reached a point where I don't give a heck what other people think. But I also just like, you know, I'll just order a Coke. If anybody asks, you know, what I'm drinking, you know, if you feel shamed, say Coke and rum. They don't know. Like I've never had anybody say, oh, let me see what you're really drinking there, Chris. That looks like Coke and rum or, you know, like a vodka Red Bull, you know, you're like, you know, you can just order a Red Bull. And people don't know.

And so I've never, I've never had anybody say, Hey, I think you're lying to me. I'm going to, let me drink your drink and see if it's really a Coke and rum. There's no rum in there, but you're lying. No one cares. Yeah. I do. I do share that with people that, you know, maybe when they start the journey, they have to stay out of social situations

because they don't feel strong enough, but at some point they'll feel strong enough to, to go in it. And, um, and, and then I say, just be proud of your choice. I, I, my go-to drink is generally soda, water, cranberry and lime, which they don't even charge you for in a lot of places. I'm willing to pay for it, but a lot of places don't even charge. Yeah, but I get a lot like, oh, what are you drinking? It looks so good. So people ask me that a lot. And I just tell them what I'm drinking. But that's actually what I coach is be proud of your choice. Yeah, free. Just be proud of it. When you say, or here's another thing that people, um, talk about, they, uh, like, how do you respond when somebody goes, well, why aren't you drinking?

And I would go, well, I'm just challenging myself myself it was just kind of like making me feel kind of bad do you really think there's anybody that questions that statement that is a drinker no you know what you know what's funny is it's kind of a brag of flex and it's kind of your own shaming that you're doing to other people because i'll i i'll tell people i'm like no no i gave a drinking and like really and i'm like yeah i didn't ever have an addiction problem, but I just got tired of it, and so I quit. And it's more healthy, and it raises my testosterone. And then the shame's on them. They just kind of look at you like, I wish I could do what you're doing.

And I'm like, well, it sucks to be you. Oh, my gosh. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, Shame back. Just, just, just pass that ball back over the net. But you know,

this is a big revelation for people stuck in this belief that they have to drink. And when they first experienced this, well, wait, people are curious. How do you do that? They're like,

how do you do that? They're like, God, I wish I'd be like you. And you're like, yeah, you do. It sucks to be you, man. You have god i wish it would be like you and you're like yeah you do sucks to be you man yeah you have a problem i know fuck you you get to be an inspiration so yeah

yeah so there's no more shame you're putting shame on them so i like that i don't like to think of it that way i'd like to think of it as being an inspiration for other people to make good choices. Yeah. I'm either inspirational or a narcissist who likes being my own thing. So I don't know. Well, the other thing is I don't want to shame people into drinking. I don't, you know, there's, I, this is everybody's choice. I don't want to be judgmental about it.

I'm addressing the people who are secretly suffering and going, I need to do something about this. What do I do? I can't do it. I can't do it. Um, if you're drinking and you're not having a problem with it and it's not affecting your health or your sleep or anything like it's a free world, we just make our choices. And, um, you know, in terms of my faith, I, you know, in terms of my faith, you know, we get to choose God, not choose God, make choices all over the place, and I just, I want to be choice-based, and for me, it's just understanding the consequences of that particular choice are very clear to me, very clear. Yeah, yeah, it makes all the difference in the world, and one thing I'll, I know we're running a little bit long here,

but one thing we're one thing I thought it did was I thought it helped me sleep better. It doesn't, it actually makes a horrible sleep. My kids. So I have grown children and what I love about me doing this and they drink all of them do. And I don't,

you know, I'll, they just see what I'm doing, but they're all having this awareness come up. Like my oldest son, he has, you know, a Garmin watch, he's pretty healthy, but he likes to drink too. And he's like, Mom, I noticed like, even when I have two drinks, my drinking, I mean, my sleep is not as good. And that's all I want. That's all i want is for them to nobody told me this when i was young i just want people to develop awareness about the substance and what it's doing to our

bodies yeah plus it's you know if you're trying to be healthy it's really dumb i'll just say that it's really dumb and that's kind of what i came to the conclusion like here i am trying to eat healthy lose weight take care of my body listen to my body and i'm still drinking like you know you're i mean i'm eating salads and vegetables and healthy foods and telling people how great it is meanwhile i'm i'm shoving toxins into my body that you know i used to do with big max or whatever you know fast food and you know it's kind that, you know, I used to do with Big Macs or whatever, you know, fast food. And, you know, it's kind of funny. You know, you see people that are like, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to work out and I'm going to go walk a mile and I'm going to do my steps and I'm going to eat my food right and eat healthy foods and not go to McDonald's.

And then I'm going to pound half a bottle of vodka. Oh, I did. I did that. I was going to a really, you know, I had a personal trainer, and they were pushing me hard. And I'd always go, well, I got to train at 6 a.m. I can't drink tonight. So that was my motivation. But, you know, come Sunday and there's a Chargers game.

I was in San Diego, and we'd go to the game. I'd be drinking all day long. And whatever benefit I made during the week i threw away single-handedly on one day of drinking and eating it was horrendous but yeah i played that game too well you know after you've watched philip rivers throw uh sabotage enough games you do drink uh oh yeah i'm a raiders no so there's a lot of drinking that goes on with the games where you're just like seriously are we losing three games into the season and not gonna make the playoffs again for the 20th year in a row uh yeah i actually went to the

super bowl with the raiders in it oh did you was that the one that tom brady stole it from us i i can't remember i it was in san diego huh and and the raiders fans were really nice because i always used to be a really raiders fans yeah at the super bowl they were i think a different contingency goes to the super bowl because the tickets are expensive then goes to the normal games i went to a raiders the only raiders game i've ever been to uh i need need to go to the new Las Vegas Coliseum. But the only Raiders games I went to was the San Francisco Raiders game. And the, and the, the violent, it was like being at a, and I've been a Raiders fan all my life,

but it was like being in a prison yard. And I've never been fewer times afraid for my life. And I'm a big guy. I'm a strong guy. Uh, and I, and I have a, I have a kind of resting bitch face.

So people see me and they're going, leave him alone. And, um, and so I can get a look like you really don't want to screw with me. Um, but I've never been so afraid in my life. I think there were fights breaking out because the,

the, uh, San Francisco, and I think the charges kind of have, I don't know. I think there were fights breaking out because the San Francisco, and I think the Chargers kind of have, I don't know, I never went to the Chargers game. But, you know, the thing between the Chargers and the Raiders are pretty crazy. And the amount of fights that broke out were just insane. But, you know, Phillip Rivers was a great quarterback. I don't think he ever, did he ever get a Super Bowl ring?

Nope. Nope. Nope. He was like Tony Romo. He was like so great. And then he would just collapse somewhere. So, anyway, enough jokes. I don't want to lose the Chargers crowd.

But you guys kind of got betrayed there with the whole move to LA. What was that? That'll cause drinking right there. That was just horrible. Yeah. I thought that was a little rude. I mean, the Raiders needed a new Coliseum and Oakland was not good.

And that Coliseum was not good for us sharing that baseball team. I used to watch us scramble through the, through the damn dirt from the baseball diamond. I'm like, what is going on over here? Why can't we do better? But I'm happy now with where we're at and Las Vegas is such a cool city anyway.

So, but yeah, San Diego needs to have its own, it's a beautiful place. It needs to have its own, no professional, no professional sports survive. Yeah.

Yeah. Baseball's still there. Padres are still there, but that's about it. There you go. Well, it'll probably change. I don't know. Maybe they'll move back or whatever. But it's kind of weird.

Like, if you're a Chargers fan, I'm like, what a betrayal. Oh, yeah. It was heartbreaking. Really heartbreaking. Well, don't drink over it. So it's been wonderful to incite you, and I think we've made some great stories and hopefully inspire some people. How can people reach out to you, Rose, get to know you better and, and what you're doing and maybe get some help? Yeah. Again, I'm www.theplanshehasforme.com and then slash boss for your free resource.

And then I just this week started my own podcast. It's called. Yeah. Say goodbye. And imagine seems pretty consistent with our talk right there you go yeah i just want people to understand um you know stories about what's possible when they say goodbye to something that they're afraid to say goodbye to definitely don't be afraid to say goodbye to this stuff it's it's a toxin man i mean just study the science of it it's your poison

it is poison you're putting in your thing and it's not fun and your life is going to be so much better for it if you're a man especially in your older ages please the the amount of testosterone it drains out of your system is intense and i imagine it does some damage with women you know if you do have more toxic to. It's more toxic to women, actually. Really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

The science is it affects women far more seriously than men. Yeah. I imagine so with hormones. But, I mean, if you have too much. Smaller. They're usually smaller and they're drinking stronger drinks. And I don't know. The way their body processes it, it's just really not good.

And that's, yeah. Yeah. And too much estrogen or too much testosterone can lead to different cancers and different things. And, you know, when you get older, man, you don't need cancer in your life. I highly recommend not having it. So there you go. So it's great that people have this. And thank you very much for being on the show. We really appreciate it, Rose. Thanks for having me. It's been fun.

There you go. Folks, order up the book, Wherever Fine Books Are Sold. It's available now on Amazon and other places. The plans he has for me, a 12-step daily devotional for freedom from alcohol by Rose Ann Forte. Thanks, my audience, for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.

And that should have us out, Rose.