I Chose My Girlfriend Over Johnnie Walker: Love Lessons from 1,000 Days Sober (Part 1)

Speaker 1 I realized in that moment, I don't want to drink this. To me, I see this as poison.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm amazed with the way you love me all the time.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm amazed to the way you put me all the time.

Speaker 1 You hold me all the time.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm amazed to the way I really need you.

Speaker 1 All right, welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast.

Speaker 1 I am Connell Barrett, a dating coach, and I wanted Paul McCartney from 1970 wings to take us into this episode because I'm amazed and I want to share something that I'm amazed about with you today.

Speaker 1 Today, you're listening to my 1,000th straight day as a sober man. I quit drinking a thousand days ago today.
This episode is dropping on November 25th.

Speaker 1 And I quit drinking on March 1st of 2023.

Speaker 1 And today,

Speaker 1 November 25th, is my 1,000th day of sobriety. And I'm actually at a Paul McCartney concert today.

Speaker 1 While you're listening to this episode, Paul McCartney might be singing Maybe I'm Amazed in Chicago, where I am right now,

Speaker 1 at least today as this episode drops with my girlfriend in Chicago.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 this is a special episode because,

Speaker 1 you know, there's a lyric from Maybe I'm Amazed.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm amazed at the way I love you.

Speaker 1 I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm a lonely man who's in the middle of something that he doesn't really understand.

Speaker 1 I was in the middle of something that I didn't understand

Speaker 1 for many years. I was in the middle of dependency on alcohol.
I had a problem. I had a drinking problem.

Speaker 1 And now that I'm a thousand days sober, I want to do an episode about my struggles with drinking, my dependency on alcohol, and how I overcame it finally for these last 1,000 days.

Speaker 1 And this is actually going to be the first of three episodes I'll be doing about sober dating, all about sober dating.

Speaker 1 But even if you don't drink or even if you don't have a problem with drinking, I think this episode will be really important for you

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 Even if you're not a drinker or not dependent on drinking like I was,

Speaker 1 you're very likely addicted or dependent on something that's hurting your dating life.

Speaker 1 You might be dependent on watching porn, which can hurt your motivation to go out and meet women because you're blunting your sexual desire.

Speaker 1 You might be addicted to procrastination,

Speaker 1 comfort.

Speaker 1 where you say, you know what, I really want to go out today and take some chances, meet some women, ask out my crush, approach that woman at the gym I see every But you might be addicted to procrastination, putting it off and staying comfortable.

Speaker 1 Maybe you're addicted to masturbation.

Speaker 1 You know, maybe you spend too much time pleasuring yourself and that can hurt your sexual desire and

Speaker 1 keep you from being motivated enough to go out and meet women. There's a lot of different things we get addicted to.
We get dependent on. My dependency was drinking.

Speaker 1 And I want to share with you my story and how it relates to my journey of improving myself and my relationship.

Speaker 1 My girlfriend Jess is with me in Chicago. We're seeing Paul McCartney together and we're spending Thanksgiving together.
And

Speaker 1 I quit drinking for her. She never asked me to.
She didn't know I had a problem. She just thought, oh, my boyfriend likes whiskey.
But I actually quit drinking.

Speaker 1 I did it for myself, but she was was my big motivator. And I'll share why in a moment.

Speaker 1 But the bottom line is everybody is addicted to something. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably dependent on something that's hurting your dating life.

Speaker 1 And today I want to help you. So stick around because near the end of the episode, I want to give you three really powerful game-changing steps.

Speaker 1 that can help you break any dependency, whether it's booze or whether it's porn. Maybe you need liquid courage to even think about approaching a woman.
I want to break you of that dependency.

Speaker 1 Maybe you think you need porn. Maybe you're addicted to staying comfortable, staying in your comfort zone.
Whatever it is, I'm going to help you.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you three really game-changing steps that helped me that you can use to break out of whatever you might be dependent on.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I want you to become dependent and addicted to taking chances and dependent and addicted to finding love and getting great at dating and finding your girlfriend. That's what I want for you.

Speaker 1 So we start today's episode back almost a thousand days ago, April 1st, 2023. And I'm at a bar here in New York City.
It's my girlfriend's 30th birthday.

Speaker 1 And I'm standing at the bar and the bartender's in front of me. There's music playing.
It's Jess's 30th birthday.

Speaker 1 People are laughing, having a great time here in New York City, place a bar in Chelsea.

Speaker 1 And I had just completed my 30th day of sobriety.

Speaker 1 A month prior, I said, you know what? I'm going to take a month off of drinking. I called it parched March.
My last drink was on February 28th of 2023. And I said, I'm going to spend 30 days

Speaker 1 sober, parched March. And my plan was simple: stay sober for 30 30 days and then quote unquote celebrate my sobriety with a drink at Jess's 30th birthday party on April 1st.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I thought, I had a good plan. And here I was at the bar a month later, and I'm all ready to toast my girlfriend.
I order a Johnny Walker of Black on the Rocks, which was always my beverage.

Speaker 1 The bartender slides it to me. I look over.
Jess is gorgeous. She's in a red dress.
She's talking talking to her friends, Amy and Dan, and Mariah.

Speaker 1 And a couple of my clients came, my good buddy and my client, Nick.

Speaker 1 All these friends are here. And

Speaker 1 I'm holding the glass, and I hold this glass. The ice is clinking.
And it looks very familiar. It all feels familiar.
You know, the cold,

Speaker 1 the cold

Speaker 1 frosted glass in my palm

Speaker 1 and the amber liquid in the glass, the sound of ice in a Rox glass.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I looked at that drink and I said,

Speaker 1 I have no desire to taste this.

Speaker 1 I thought,

Speaker 1 what am I doing? Why am I going to toast

Speaker 1 my sobriety with a glass of alcohol?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I realized in that moment, I don't want to drink this. To me, I see this as poison.
I see this as a glass of poison.

Speaker 1 And I realized that looking at that glass, about to take a drink, I was about to waste something incredibly precious, something incredibly precious that I created over the previous month.

Speaker 1 Because when I quit drinking a month earlier, and it was just going to be for 30 days, before I knew it, six or seven days in, I lost about five pounds, six pounds.

Speaker 1 Now, a lot of that was water weight, but

Speaker 1 some of it was fat. And I was sleeping better and I was feeling better.

Speaker 1 And to my pleasant surprise, when I finished a long day of work, I wasn't aching for a drink. I certainly craved it for about a week, but I wasn't aching for it.
And all of a sudden, I could see

Speaker 1 my face and body start to slim out a little bit.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I realized

Speaker 1 what I had in front of me, that drink, it was just like poison. I didn't want to drink it.
And I had something so much more valuable in my life. I had a newfound sense of worthiness, of self-worth.

Speaker 1 I had something really precious. I had my sobriety back.

Speaker 1 And I think that's why that glass of Johnny Walker looked so repulsive to me, because I had spent the last 10 years telling myself, I'll quit tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

Speaker 1 Every night, not every night, but so many nights over the previous 10 years, I said, All right, tonight's my last drink.

Speaker 1 And then three scotches later, I would have the beverages. Maybe I'd go one or two sober days, but then I'd have another drink.
And then I'd tell myself, okay, tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll quit.

Speaker 1 I cannot tell you how many times I took a walk around my neighborhood here in Manhattan on an evening. Usually it would be like a Saturday night.
And I'd say, okay, here's my last drink.

Speaker 1 A couple of little mini bottles in my pocket.

Speaker 1 And I would say, okay,

Speaker 1 tonight's my last drink. Tomorrow I'll quit for good.
Basically, every night was December 31st for me. January 1st never came.
New Year's Day never came.

Speaker 1 I poured my quote-unquote unquote last glass of alcohol hundreds and hundreds of times over the previous decade.

Speaker 1 And every time it was the same lie, I told myself, this is the last one. I'll turn over a new leaf tomorrow.
And that's the pattern of addiction that I realized. It was negotiation.

Speaker 1 I was negotiating with myself.

Speaker 1 Not unlike when you see a beautiful woman and you think, oh man, I would love to go talk to her, but you know what? I don't have the confidence today. Maybe tomorrow i'll do it

Speaker 1 or losing those last five pounds oh tomorrow i'll start hitting the gym self-negotiation negotiating with yourself so you make deals with yourself you bargain you delay you promise and nothing changes now again maybe it's not booze for you maybe it's i'll approach a woman tomorrow when i have more time I'll start that gym program on Monday.

Speaker 1 I really got to stop going to U porn so often. I'll delete the porn apps

Speaker 1 or I'll delete my porn history and stop going to Uporn tomorrow.

Speaker 1 The substances change from person to person, but the pattern doesn't when there's dependency.

Speaker 1 And then for me, what really called me to finally make a change was there was a moment in the preceding month. So again, I quit drinking on March 1st, 2023.

Speaker 1 And a few days before then, there was a moment where the wall started to crack. It was 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 And that night, I had

Speaker 1 done my usual pattern of two or three scotches followed by late night binge eating.

Speaker 1 Not that I was eating a huge amount, but I would keep myself from eating a normal, regular diet because I wanted the booze in my stomach to enter my bloodstream and get that buzz, get that sense of, yeah,

Speaker 1 drinks. I am in the zone.

Speaker 1 And this night I had one too many drinks and one too many bites of some kind of late night pasta. I wake up at 3 a.m.

Speaker 1 And I was choking on vomit in bed. That me choking on vomit woke me up.

Speaker 1 That had never happened to me. And I don't want to overstate this.
It wasn't life-threatening. I wasn't in danger of dying like a rock star or anything like that.

Speaker 1 It was just like spit up in my mouth, woke me up. It wasn't life-threatening at all, but it was jarring.
And that just so is not me.

Speaker 1 I am not the kind of guy who wakes up in the middle of the night vomiting from some kind of

Speaker 1 substance, even though this is what was happening to me. I remember thinking, who am I? Who wakes up puking up pasta primavera and Johnny Walker Black? What kind of person does that?

Speaker 1 And that was

Speaker 1 a wake-up call number one. It was one of two or three wake-up calls.
Wake-up call number one was waking up puking in the middle of the night, like Mama Cass or Jim Morrison or something.

Speaker 1 And then a day or two later,

Speaker 1 it's a morning. I step out of the shower,

Speaker 1 standing in front of the bathroom mirror, naked,

Speaker 1 and I saw what I'd become. I looked in the mirror and I saw this belly,

Speaker 1 this big, swelling belly, dull eyes.

Speaker 1 I looked tired. I looked bad.

Speaker 1 And I had gone, it's not that I wasn't working out. It's just that I was avoiding looking at the scale.
And I remember I got on the scale that same day.

Speaker 1 And the scale, for the first time in my life, I saw 2-0-0

Speaker 1 on the scale. Now, my ideal weight, I'm 6'1, 6'2, 6'1.

Speaker 1 but I'm a pretty slender guy. I've always been a pretty slender guy.
My ideal weight, probably 165, 170. I never hit 200 in my life.
That was wake-up call number two.

Speaker 1 Now, alcohol was not the only cause of that, but when you're drinking five or six days a week, like I was, there's always alcohol-adjacent food, right? Late night pasta.

Speaker 1 I loved having Tablerone chocolate with Johnny Walker Black, chocolate with whiskey. Oh, man,

Speaker 1 proof that there might be a God.

Speaker 1 So I'm looking at the mirror. I see this bloated, pear-shaped person.
I have skinny legs, but a big gut. And it was repulsive, just repulsive.
I get on the scale, 200 pounds, repulsive.

Speaker 1 Just 30 extra pounds of denial hanging on my frame.

Speaker 1 And then a third wake-up call came, which was, and this had happened a few times already, but I was starting to deal with erectile dysfunction.

Speaker 1 I don't mean whiskey dick. I mean, my girlfriend and I were getting it on or trying to, but I couldn't get it up.
I couldn't get an erection. I don't mean after a night of drinking.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, Saturday morning when there was no active alcohol in my system.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 by the way, Jess is beautiful, sexy, incredible.

Speaker 1 It wasn't her. It really wasn't.
It was me, or specifically, it was the inflammation. It was the toxins.
It was my body

Speaker 1 shutting down to an extent, shutting down that part of me because I kept pouring

Speaker 1 toxins into it. And that really was a third wake-up call for me.
I remember thinking, okay, you're 30 pounds overweight, Connell. You're now in your 50s anyway.

Speaker 1 You have this beautiful 30-year-old girlfriend who you are so in love with.

Speaker 1 and you can't please her. What if you can't please her anymore?

Speaker 1 It's just a matter of time, right, before she's going to find somebody who does look good shirtless, who can please her, who is younger and more virile.

Speaker 1 And I started to see the cost of my addiction. And I wasn't just looking at the current cost.
It was costing me self-esteem. I was literally avoiding the mirror.

Speaker 1 I would not look in the the mirror, at least not shirtless, because I didn't want to see that big bloated belly protruding.

Speaker 1 And I didn't get on a scale for so many months until that day I finally weighed myself and saw 200 for the first time. I think it was 201.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that was a huge wake-up call.

Speaker 1 Now, even with all of that, Even with all of that happening in mid-February of 23,

Speaker 1 I knew, you know, the vomiting, the 35, 40 pounds heavier than ideal, the erectile dysfunction.

Speaker 1 I knew I had a problem,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I still hadn't made a real decision.

Speaker 1 I kept delaying. I kept saying to myself, well, you know, it's okay to drink when I'm with my clients.

Speaker 1 I'm out at night in the bars doing approach training with my clients. What's wrong with the drink? Or I'm out with with my girlfriend.

Speaker 1 What's wrong with the drink? So I kept negotiating. I kept telling myself

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 everything's fine.

Speaker 1 You just need to lose a few pounds and cut down. Then I found an incredible, incredible book that really pushed me over and made me say, this is the end.
I'm going to change my ways.

Speaker 1 I hit full threshold. I found a book.

Speaker 1 A man named Alan Carr, C-A-R-R, he wrote a book called The Easy Way to Control Drinking. Alan Carr passed away several years ago, actually passed away.

Speaker 1 He died of lung cancer because he was also a long-term smoker. He was a big smoker and a big drinker before he quit and created,

Speaker 1 wrote a few best-selling books. The one I read is called The Easy Way to Control Drinking.
And I thought, what a cool title. This sounds good.
I want to control my drinking.

Speaker 1 Doesn't mean I have to quit. It just means I need to control it.
But it's a really sneaky title because

Speaker 1 you're reading the book and he's making these incredible arguments about why we don't need alcohol. He talks about how liquid courage doesn't exist.

Speaker 1 Three things in this book hit me hard. Liquid courage does not exist.

Speaker 1 In other words, Carr says that alcohol doesn't give you confidence. All it does is it numbs your fear.
It shuts down your... overactive brain that's focused on the thing you're afraid of.

Speaker 1 So you feel brave because you can't feel the anxiety anymore. I thought that was a really cool insight.
He also made the point that you can have everything alcohol gives you without the drinking.

Speaker 1 You want to socialize? You don't need, you can hold a glass of seltzer. You want to relax? You can watch a movie, play guitar, take an improv class in my case.

Speaker 1 If you want to celebrate, make it hot chocolate, not a hot toddy.

Speaker 1 And I think the biggest realization I had from Carr's book, he wrote something, he said,

Speaker 1 toward the end of the book, he says, okay, I got to confess. I'm paraphrasing now, by the way.
But Carr writes,

Speaker 1 the title of this book is a bit of a

Speaker 1 bit of a manipulation. This book is not about controlling drinking.
I just wanted you to read it, he tells the reader. You can stop and should.

Speaker 1 Sure, you can control drinking. You can have one or two drinks now and then.
But why would you want to have one or two glasses of strychnine?

Speaker 1 Why would you want to have one or two glasses of poison?

Speaker 1 And he said that word, poison.

Speaker 1 And that really was the ice cold water or ice cold vodka I needed to have thrown on my face. When he said poison, I realized that's true.
Alcohol is poison. And I am, by the way, I am not.

Speaker 1 Bible thumping here that you or anybody else should quit drinking. I needed to because I was dependent on it and I had a problem with it.
Nothing wrong with having a drink.

Speaker 1 But for me, when Carr said, Sure, you can have alcohol every now and then, but you can also have strychnine every now and then.

Speaker 1 You can also have a glass of cleaner, bathroom cleaner every now and then. But would you want to? Because that's what you're doing by drinking.
And that was the end.

Speaker 1 That's when I knew I had my last drink, late February.

Speaker 1 And in his book, he said, Have your last drink. Literally,

Speaker 1 make it a sacrament. Make it a celebration.
Pour your last drink. And I did that on February 28th, 23, poured my last drink.
A couple of Johnny Walker blacks.

Speaker 1 Go out with what you want.

Speaker 1 And even though I told myself 30 days, there was that little voice that said,

Speaker 1 maybe this will be it. Maybe this will be it.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the other thing that really pushed me over the edge, really made me get to that decision where I knew it was over.

Speaker 1 It really is about, I was afraid of losing my girlfriend.

Speaker 1 My girlfriend, she's the most important person in the world to me.

Speaker 1 She's love of my life.

Speaker 1 All the work I did and all my years of dating and working on dating and becoming a dating coach, everything led me to her.

Speaker 1 And I realized that if I didn't quit drinking, there's a really good chance that that I would lose her. Not today, not tomorrow, but what if I gained 20 more pounds? What if I developed health issues?

Speaker 1 What if I got, was completely unable to please her emotionally or sexually? Why would she want to be with me?

Speaker 1 My girlfriend Jess can have a million different guys in her life if she wanted, but she chose me. And I realized I had to become a better man for myself and to keep her.

Speaker 1 That was my story. She never said that to me at all.
This is my interpretation, but I needed that interpretation to create leverage on myself. I made the stakes sky high.

Speaker 1 I told myself on February 28th, Connell, you got to stop drinking or else you are going to be fatter.

Speaker 1 You are going to be a full alcoholic. You'll probably die before you're 60.
from liver cirrhosis.

Speaker 1 That was the path I was on, literally. I was on the path to hospitalization someday, to losing my girlfriend, to

Speaker 1 just not being the man I was put on this earth to be.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, so

Speaker 1 March 1st, 2023, made that decision. I said 30 days sober.
I had fun with it. I told everybody, parched March.
I'm enjoying parched March. You know, there's dry January.

Speaker 1 There's some word for February. I forget what it it is.
But then I said, hey, it's parched March.

Speaker 1 I remember Jess and I went to a friend's Friday night cocktail get-together at a nice apartment, and wine was going around. And this was on St.
Patrick's Day of 23.

Speaker 1 And somebody

Speaker 1 asked me if I wanted a drink. And I said, no, thank you.
I'm doing a parched March.

Speaker 1 Sober St. Patrick's Day.
And that was my first sober St. Patrick's Day since

Speaker 1 Obama was president. It had been a long time since I'd

Speaker 1 not had a drink on Patty's Day.

Speaker 1 And again, it was just a plan to, I told myself, just do 30 days, just do 30 days.

Speaker 1 And I remember on St. Patrick's Day, not only was I not drinking at that little get-together, but I didn't even want any.
That felt incredible. And I could see in the mirror

Speaker 1 my face was getting less bloated. I had dropped eight or 10 pounds two weeks into March.
Again, much of that was water and just inflammation, but some of it was fat. I was looking better.

Speaker 1 I was sleeping better.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I realized, oh my God, I am happier. I enjoy being sober more than I enjoyed the brief,

Speaker 1 the brief buzz. and state change that alcohol, that alcohol was giving me.
I was sleeping better, and I'm very happy to report I never had and have never had a single knock on wood, no pun intended.

Speaker 1 I have not had a single issue with erectile dysfunction in the last 1,000 days. Not once, proud to say.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I'm no scientist. I don't know for a fact that the booze was creating that, but I'm 98% sure because I have not had any issues since.
And I was sleeping better.

Speaker 1 So Jess and I were making better, more passionate, wonderful love. I feel.
All of a sudden, I was back. I felt amazing.
And I went out with my clients, going to bars with my clients.

Speaker 1 Not only did I not drink, I was proud to not be drinking and helping my clients approach girls and not needing alcohol as fuel to do it.

Speaker 1 And I just felt fantastic.

Speaker 1 And so what I would do to replace,

Speaker 1 I realized something early on.

Speaker 1 And being a self-improvement coach really helped me. I was able to coach myself in a sense, even though Alan Carr's book was coaching me.

Speaker 1 I listened to that book many times, The Easy Way to Control Drinking or Control Alcohol. But I knew what was going on.
I knew that alcohol was giving me a state change.

Speaker 1 It was allowing me to go from a stressed out,

Speaker 1 you know, logical, oh, tough day.

Speaker 1 Boy, this client was a pain in the butt. Oh, this business problem.

Speaker 1 And then I would, you know, 7, 8 p.m. would come around and whiskey was a way for me to change my state to something that felt better.
But I just replaced the change of state.

Speaker 1 Instead of alcohol, I listened to a really funny podcast.

Speaker 1 Or I watched a great movie or a podcast about a movie. Or I played piano or guitar.
Or I take an improv class.

Speaker 1 And when I do improv, I get drunk without a drop of booze. I feel great when I'm doing improv.
So I take improv classes instead of drink.

Speaker 1 So part of the secret to fixing addiction, at least for me anyway, I can only speak for myself, was understanding what

Speaker 1 need, what emotional need,

Speaker 1 what

Speaker 1 state change was occurring the alcohol was creating and just creating it in a different way. For me, I just wanted to go from

Speaker 1 stressed out and logical to loose and light and relaxed. And alcohol does it quickly.
And I had to work harder to do it by watching the movie or taking the improv class

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 calling a friend and having a fun conversation, catching up with an old friend. I had to work harder, but I was getting the same state change just without the alcohol.

Speaker 1 But I was also getting something so much more valuable in return.

Speaker 1 Self-worth.

Speaker 1 I felt so good 20, 30 days in.

Speaker 1 And so I had the self-worth. I was performing better in bed.
I looked better. I felt more confident.
I could see the weight coming off. I'm sleeping better.
I just, I felt 10 years younger.

Speaker 1 Oh, I didn't even mention my back problems.

Speaker 1 I threw my back out about a month before I quit drinking. And again, I'm not a physician.

Speaker 1 I'm a date doctor, but I'm not a doctor, doctor. But I would bet my life savings that my back problem was at least least exacerbated by my drinking.

Speaker 1 Because I had all this toxicity in my system, all this inflammation that made

Speaker 1 whatever caused my pulled muscles in my lower back

Speaker 1 lasted a month, or about three weeks, three weeks of walking around

Speaker 1 like a human question mark. I was not in a good physical place.
And I know I would have recovered more quickly had I not been drinking. So

Speaker 1 it's Jess's 30th birthday, April 1st, 2023, 30 days sober.

Speaker 1 I go up to the bartender, Johnny Walker on the rocks, he hands me that drink and that little voice says, you don't want this. Ew, this is poison.

Speaker 1 It was almost like that, that, what I call the higher self. I tell my clients, we all have a higher self and a lower self.
It's like my higher self was saying, don't do this to me. Don't drink that.

Speaker 1 You don't want that. What's it going to do? It's going to give you a quick buzz, but you're going to feel feel so much guilt.
You're going to throw away the last 30 days.

Speaker 1 It's like the voice of my slimmer, more virile, more results-oriented champion inside of me took over and said, You don't need this.

Speaker 1 And yeah, I looked at that glass and I saw it for what it was to me, was poison. I knew that I didn't need a glass of Johnny Walker or any alcohol to toast my girlfriend.
I toasted her that night with

Speaker 1 ginger beer with seltzer. And we had a great time.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I just remember knowing that that really was the end of my drinking.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that was a big moment of truth for me, a big moment of truth. Also, I just, I just know how my mind works.
If you're anything like me,

Speaker 1 your brain loves a streak. I love a streak.
I love a hitting streak in baseball.

Speaker 1 I love,

Speaker 1 I don't know,

Speaker 1 working for 10 straight days and crushing it. I love a streak in sports.
I love getting all my first serves in and tennis.

Speaker 1 And my brain loved the fact that I had gone 30 days sober and I knew I'd have to start over again if I had that one drink. And I was done.
I was done with tomorrow.

Speaker 1 My new resolution or my new decision came, became, you know what? No more tomorrow. Every day with me had been December 31st, partying, drinking, New Year's Eve, and then January 1st never came.

Speaker 1 My new mantra, which I recommend you adopt for whatever your

Speaker 1 higher level behavior would be, my new mantra became, every day is January 1st.

Speaker 1 Every day I make a decision to restrain from drinking and to be healthy and to be on that narrow road, that right path. And I really haven't looked back.

Speaker 1 I really haven't been tested or tempted in any significant way since. And I say that not to brag at all, quite the opposite.
It took me 10 years to finally get to this place.

Speaker 1 I'd been thinking about wanting to, quote unquote, trying to quit drinking for over a decade.

Speaker 1 And it took me that long to finally get to the moment of decision. So I've been sober ever since.
Thousand days.

Speaker 1 I'm recording this, or I used used to say this episode is dropping on November 25th, Tuesday, November 25th. That has been exactly 1,000 days.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I go to bars all the time with my clients to help them approach women, but I don't drink. Most of my clients don't either, for what that's worth.
And I'm not even white-knuckling it.

Speaker 1 I'm not even resisting temptation. I genuinely don't want it anymore.
And that's exactly what Alan Carr said would happen.

Speaker 1 He's like, ah, once you really, once you change your associations with the thing that you're addicted to,

Speaker 1 you don't really want it anymore.

Speaker 1 Very true. And so my health, as far as I know, is so much better now.
By the way, I weigh about 169, 170 pounds. I've lost 30 pounds since I quit drinking.
I have great sex with my girlfriend, Jess.

Speaker 1 At least I have it. I hope she does too.

Speaker 1 I'm clear-headed. I'm sharper.

Speaker 1 I have potentially saved my life. Potentially.
Who knows? Four, five, six years down the road, I might have been looking at

Speaker 1 liver disease.

Speaker 1 A relative, a close relative of someone I know died of liver disease.

Speaker 1 And they weren't much older than me. This person drank a lot.
I remember when this person died and I found out why it was this big secret that she'd been secretly drinking for decades.

Speaker 1 And I thought, man, that's the path I was on. That's the path I was on.
But no, today I'm in way about 170

Speaker 1 and I look pretty good shirtless. At least I look better than I did.
I used to look like a pear before, a pear with toothpick legs shirtless.

Speaker 1 And now I'm proud to take my shirt off. My girlfriend and I went to the beach

Speaker 1 or had a beach weekend with some friends of hers. And I was like, taking my shirt off.

Speaker 1 Nobody's going to notice, but I knew I felt good about it. Nobody's looking at my shirtless body and saying, oh my God, who's that guy with the average but trim physique? But I look a lot better.

Speaker 1 Bottom line is I look a lot better.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 anyway, I'm really proud of where I've come. But again, this episode is not just me saying, yay, I'm sober.
Everybody tell me how great I am. That's not what today is about.

Speaker 1 My addiction wasn't just alcohol. It was avoidance.
I was addicted to avoiding alcohol or drinking, quitting drinking. I was addicted to comfort.
I was escaping discomfort.

Speaker 1 I was negotiating with myself, delaying the life that I wanted. And

Speaker 1 you may not be addicted to a substance, but you could be addicted to something else. Maybe it's avoidance, safety, porn, scrolling.
In your dating life,

Speaker 1 you're probably, for lack of a better term, addicted to comfort, safety. You're playing it safe, right?

Speaker 1 How many times have you seen a woman out in the world, that beautiful woman at the gym, gorgeous woman at the bar?

Speaker 1 And you tell yourself, well, I'll go talk to her if she looks at me, if she smiles, if there's no other people around her who might hear me approach her, and if she's wearing a sign around her neck that says, horny for men to approach her.

Speaker 1 If all of those boxes get checked, then I'll go approach her.

Speaker 1 If that's you, then you are addicted to playing it safe with women.

Speaker 1 You're addicted to

Speaker 1 comfort.

Speaker 1 That's why you don't approach. So the drug is different, but the addiction is pretty much the same.
So let me give you three steps to break addiction.

Speaker 1 At least the three steps I've found helpful for me and my drinking issues. And that also I've used the I use these three steps to help

Speaker 1 some of my clients break out of the dependency they have on safety or avoiding the kind of action they want to take.

Speaker 1 And so here are the three steps. This is basically how to kick any habit, pretty much how to kick any bad habit.
Step one is get brutally clear on the cost that this behavior is taking.

Speaker 1 What is it costing you? What is your addiction costing you? What are you missing out on? What's the emotional toll and what is the measurable toll?

Speaker 1 For me, the emotional toll was self-esteem and low confidence. Looking in the mirror, I felt disgusted when I looked in the mirror at my 200-pound body and my big belly.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the other toll was going to be losing my girlfriend, getting dumped in a year or two, or five, or whatever it would be.

Speaker 1 The ultimate toll I was forecasting for myself was if I stayed on that track, death, illness,

Speaker 1 just being a old, sad, drunk

Speaker 1 who

Speaker 1 didn't become the man he could have been, and losing my girlfriend, my amazing girlfriend. And that getting clear on the cost that your dependency is taking on you is the first step.

Speaker 1 You got to get clear on it. Now, with my clients who are struggling with

Speaker 1 with self-doubt.

Speaker 1 Maybe you're struggling with self-doubt.

Speaker 1 You probably are if you're listening to this podcast still. You want to approach beautiful women.
You want a beautiful girlfriend. You want to take some romantic risks, but you don't do it.

Speaker 1 You have doubt. You doubt your worth.
You doubt if you're enough. And you got to understand what that's costing you.
How many women have you not approached?

Speaker 1 What love?

Speaker 1 What kind of relationship have you missed out on? What beautiful woman,

Speaker 1 think about 10 beautiful women you wanted to approach, but didn't. Or three women you had a crush on, but you never even asked them out.
Do you realize that your self-doubt

Speaker 1 cost you love?

Speaker 1 It might have cost you love and sex and a family.

Speaker 1 That's very high cost. And it's cost you self-esteem.
It's cost you

Speaker 1 emotional worth. at least in relationship to women, probably.

Speaker 1 So step one, you got to get brutally clear on the cost, just like I did.

Speaker 1 I saw the toll drinking was taking on me. And you need to see the toll that your,

Speaker 1 whatever your dependent behavior is, you got to see what it's taking on you.

Speaker 1 And step two, so basically get clear on the pain, crystal clear, not to be an asshole to yourself, but it's only when our psychology,

Speaker 1 only when our minds see the pain, where we say, I don't want any more of this. I'm done.
This is too expensive.

Speaker 1 I got to stop this behavior.

Speaker 1 In my case, it was a actual behavioral pattern of drinking. In your case, it might not be drinking.

Speaker 1 It might be a substance, but it could also be a mindset behavior, thinking, the very thought of, oh, you know what? I am just not enough for women because I'm too short and too shy. Well, that.

Speaker 1 behavior, mental behavior, is taking a huge toll on you, on your emotions, on your actions, and on your dating life.

Speaker 1 And it's costing you the single thing that women love most in a man, which is confidence.

Speaker 1 If you don't feel confident in your worth to women, if you have thoughts and beliefs that tell you you are not enough, that is the same, you're pouring yourself a triple shot of self-doubt every day.

Speaker 1 And you're doing the same thing I'm doing or was doing, but with actually with alcohol in my case. So you got to get clear on the cost.
Step two, fall in love with the reward.

Speaker 1 Fall in love with the benefits, the rewards that will come to you after you change your behavior. In other words, focus on what's waiting for you on the other side.
In my case, better sex,

Speaker 1 continuing to be with my girlfriend, self-confidence, looking good shirtless. I actually wanted to take my shirt off at the beach this summer with my girlfriend and her friends.
I usually hide.

Speaker 1 I'm that guy. I was always that guy who would keep his shirt on and like, you know, at the beach because I didn't want my tummy sticking out.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 what's the reward you're going to have when you quit porn

Speaker 1 or when you stop masturbating so much?

Speaker 1 When you stop avoiding approaching women,

Speaker 1 when you quit junk food, when you lose the weight, whatever it might be, what reward is waiting for you?

Speaker 1 Think about the future girlfriend you want. Think about the confidence you want to feel the great sex that's waiting for you whether it's dating or a different part of life

Speaker 1 the reward has to be just as compelling in a positive way as the cost is hurtful and painful to you

Speaker 1 so step one quick review step one get brutally clear on the cost of this behavior. Step two, fall in love with the reward.
What's it going to bring to you?

Speaker 1 How great is it going to feel when you finally get there, when you're free of this dependency, this addiction.

Speaker 1 And then step three is make the behavior daily, a daily ritual, the right action, the right behavior. Make it a daily ritual.
Ritual, the right rituals equal results.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 for the first 30 days of my sobriety, I woke up and

Speaker 1 I do a morning thing I call confidence kickoff. I do it, I do it, I have my clients do it as well.
Every morning, get your head on, right? Get your head on straight. And I gave myself an incantation.

Speaker 1 Every day is January 1st.

Speaker 1 Every day is January 1st. You know how when you create a new year's resolution,

Speaker 1 I'm going to hit the gym, I'm going to lose weight, I'm going to eat better, quit smoking.

Speaker 1 You make that resolution and then it lasts for a few days, but then, you know, January 15th or so, so, 14th, 15th, you're back to your old ways. But for January 1st, you're great.
You're at the gym.

Speaker 1 You're crushing it. Every day I told myself every day of my life is January 1st.
No more December 31st. So every day I recommitted to

Speaker 1 not drinking. I reminded myself of the benefits.
I listened to podcasts about sobriety.

Speaker 1 I Googled all kinds of information about how I was part of a trend. More and more people, more people are more sober today than literally any time in modern history.
I felt trendy.

Speaker 1 And every day I gave myself new leverage and a new reminder. The simplest leverage I had was just being with my girlfriend, just being with Jess.

Speaker 1 knowing that I was doing everything in my power to be a good boyfriend and to be healthy and happy and

Speaker 1 vital for her and for me, for both of us, her and me. It wasn't just her, but she was a big motivator for me, obviously, as you can tell.
So yeah,

Speaker 1 make your new behavior a daily ritual. So let's game out a few possibilities here.
Maybe you're listening to this and you say, hey, Connell, you're onto something here.

Speaker 1 I've got to change my eating habits. Make it a daily ritual.
Every day is January 1st. Maybe it's self-doubt.
Maybe you realize you tell yourself you're not good enough.

Speaker 1 You tell yourself you're unworthy of a great girlfriend or you're just not what women want.

Speaker 1 You've got to write a new and improved belief and say it out loud every single day. Every single day, say to yourself, I am so worthy of an abundance of beautiful women because I have a good heart.

Speaker 1 I am intelligent. I'm funny.
And then fill in more blanks that are resonant with you. And remind yourself, and lots of women are going to love being with me.

Speaker 1 Remind yourself of your worth, your worth as your authentic self to women. Got to remind yourself.
You don't. Nobody else will.
Rituals equal results. Maybe it's porn for you.

Speaker 1 Every day remind yourself. I'm not saying don't masturbate.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying if you're addicted to it, if you have an actual problem, every day remind yourself, hey, here are the benefits of me not going to you porn today.

Speaker 1 And then turn turn that new and improved mindset into the right action.

Speaker 1 make your new and improved mindset a daily ritual. And if you're simply struggling with a lack of dating success, then make your daily ritual one simple sentence.

Speaker 1 Everything I coach, everything I teach as a dating coach for men boils down into one sentence, which is take

Speaker 1 right, authentic, courageous action every day. Take one authentic, courageous risk every day.
Do that every day for 30 days. You're going to have momentum.

Speaker 1 Approach one beautiful woman a day for a month. Ask your crush out tomorrow if it's appropriate to do so.
Don't do it if she's your boss, but you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 Take one romantic right action, one romantic risk every day with courage and authenticity. You really can't go wrong.
You really can't go wrong.

Speaker 1 So yeah, those are the three steps. Step one,

Speaker 1 got to get clear on the cost. What's this costing me? What pain this creating? What am I losing because of this behavior? Step two, fall in love with what changing your behavior will bring.

Speaker 1 Fall in love with that reward. And step three, make your new right action a daily ritual.

Speaker 1 So that daily, that decision happens every single day, not just once. So ask yourself, what are you addicted to? What's it costing you?

Speaker 1 What would your life look like if you replaced that behavior with something better?

Speaker 1 And what can you decide to do starting today

Speaker 1 what can you what can you do with your life if you begin to take action today today can be your day one of your 1000 day journey to an incredible outcome or probably something much

Speaker 1 that will happen much more quickly than a thousand days

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 yeah Anyway, your life will change the moment that you stop numbing yourself and you start choosing to take action. So I certainly hope that you decide to start taking action, just as I did.

Speaker 1 Way too late, much later than I should have, but I still did it. And in my case, hey,

Speaker 1 it was better late than ever.

Speaker 1 By the way, this is the first of three episodes about sober dating.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to do two more episodes.

Speaker 1 I'm going to do another episode about approaching the art of approaching women sober, how to do it sober, how to go out for a night or a day sober in a way that works really, really well.

Speaker 1 And I'm also going to do another episode about

Speaker 1 some sober dating tips, especially through the lens of meeting women, having dates with women, and how to navigate this area of dating when you're sober or deciding to perhaps not drink on a date, or maybe you are sober and you meet a woman who does like to drink.

Speaker 1 How do you handle that? What's the right way to navigate that? Or vice versa? Maybe you drink and she doesn't. What's the right way to navigate the world of

Speaker 1 dating when one of you is sober? Hopefully you.

Speaker 1 But it doesn't have to be that way.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I guess really I want you to ask yourself, what is your glass of Johnny Walker Scotch?

Speaker 1 And when are you going to put it down? Okay, I'm going to end with another song, another Paul McCartney song.

Speaker 1 This is a song that actually makes me think of my girlfriend Jess a lot because

Speaker 1 it's just such a warm song. And let's see if I can find it here.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 let's see. Paul McCartney.

Speaker 1 Let me roll it.

Speaker 1 And there's something about the guitar in this song. It's so cool because

Speaker 1 it sounds like

Speaker 1 it's a McCartney

Speaker 1 Wings song.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 there's a guitar lick in this song that sounds so much like John Lennon that you could just tell Paul was making this an homage to John Lennon. Let me find it here.
Let me roll it.

Speaker 1 I think it's under wings. I'm just going through my iPhone here.

Speaker 1 Why am I not finding it here?

Speaker 1 Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1 All right. I'm going to let Paul McCartney play us out

Speaker 1 with Let Me Roll It, Wings,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I think you should roll it next. I think you should roll the dice, take some chances, and

Speaker 1 start your January 1st starting today. Until next time.

Speaker 1 The song is for you, Jess.

Speaker 1 You gave me something.

Speaker 1 I understand.

Speaker 1 you gave me love.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 do

Speaker 1 tell you

Speaker 1 I will.

Speaker 1 My heart is mine and will

Speaker 1 let me roll it.

Speaker 1 Let me roll it to you.

Speaker 1 Let me roll it.

Speaker 1 let it go into

Speaker 1 you.