I feel so much happier since I stopped drinking alcohol back in 2017. In this raw, honest episode I want to share my journey with you as I know that many entrepreneurs suffer from similar challenges with alcohol. If you want to quit, or even reduce your alcohol consumption, this may hit home. I want to touch on the really important topic of alcohol in entrepreneurship because numbing pain is real. It was for me. I’m going to be raw and honest becasue this was my life and I have my own personal journey and relationship with alcohol that ended in July 2017. I reached the point when I knew I didn’t want to drink it anymore, but there was a lot that led up to that moment. My journey with alcohol started when I was working on video games and magazines. I was 16 years old, I’d just moved to Bournemouth in the UK and I was working as an editorial assistant on the magazine I used to love to read myself. Yes, this was my ‘dream job’. Everyone went to the pub after work to drink. I was part of the afternoon work gang, drinking to the point when I’d almost pass out. I spent a lot of time drinking within my work environment and it just became a habit. I had a cycle of drinking and smoking. That got worse as I got older when I started to get into drugs, taking cocaine and ecstasy, At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I was just a young guy going out and drinking alcohol, but I can see it was a way for me to fit in. I never really liked the taste of alcohol and I didn’t like how I felt when I was drinking, but just through repetition, and the circle of people that I chose to hang around with it felt normal. I would go out on Friday and Saturday nights, sometimes midweek, hook up with girls, and get drunk. This was me from the age of 16 until my early 30’s. Things started to take a bit of a different turn when I got involved in drugs, taking cocaine at parties before going to nightclubs. I was introduced to cocaine from another personal trainer. I Led A Double Life During the week I worked as a personal trainer and on the weekends I was a DJ. I had my own DJ set and I got a lot of attention for that. My cycle started on a Friday night – I’d go out, drink, smoke, to drugs, and then gamble. I had a sequence and a pattern of addiction. I didn’t understand my addiction was directly linked to my lack of connection with myself. I think everybody has a different relationship with alcohol, but for me, it was definitely unhealthy and it was linked to my lack of self-worth, my need to fit in, and my need for validation. I remember getting called into the personal training manager’s office. I had been out at the weekend, doing things I shouldn’t have while wearing my personal training T-shirt and my manager wasn’t happy. I look back now and laugh. I was out drinking wearing my T-shirt with personal trainer on the back, then getting drunk. What was I doing? I was trying to look good, trying to be somebody while I was smoking and drinking. I was leading a completely double life. The version of me I didn’t even like was behaving inappropriately and I was being called out it in my work environment. I lied to my personal training manager and said the things I’d been accused of didn’t happen. My behavior was not something I was proud of, it was a version of me that was showing up and I didn’t like that. I beat myself up. I would spend days and weeks in a depression because I’d heard things I had done that I was ashamed of. I felt really upset with myself. ‘Depressed is the need for deep rest from the character that we’re playing in the world’ – Jeff Foster. After my spiritual growth and evolution, I can look back and understand I was playing a character. I was showing up to try to impress and I was drinking and taking drugs to feel confident. Over time you become very disconnected from yourself and very isolated. You then create a group of toxic people around you who encourage you and make you...