#391 Snippets of wisdom: Are you sober-curious?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
___
Please note that while an effort is made to provide an accurate transcription, errors and omissions may be present. No part of this transcription can be referenced or reproduced without permission.
___

Agi Keramidas  0:00  
You're listening to personal development mastery, the podcast that empowers you with a simple and consistent actions to take that will help you create a life of purpose and fulfilment. This is another snippet of wisdom, where I select my favourite most insightful moments from previous episodes. Today's snippet comes from the episode with Chris Branch, who is an osteopath, ultra marathon runner, and YouTuber, it is a conversation about alcohol for people who are sober curious. Before we dive into the snippet, if you enjoy listening and appreciate what we're doing here, the simple quick favour I would like to ask of you is to click the subscribe button. Now let's get started.

Chris Branch  0:52  
There is a very strong cultural link to alcohol. And so as always make it really clear that this is something I'm not trying to press on on anyone so. So I've come to notice, there are two types of people in the world there, there are people like my wife, where she actually just doesn't like the feeling of getting drunk, she doesn't like feeling of being tipsy, or being out of control. She likes a flavour of alcohol, but because she doesn't really like getting drunk, she'll have a glass of wine from time to time. And she'll stop after that glass of wine, but and she's enjoyed the flavour. But then she can stop. Then there's another type of person. And for whatever reason, I think I'm coming to learn that there are genetic factors here. But for whatever reason, your body when you start drinking, and this is the category I fall into, you can easily cascade into drinking too much. Now, for me personally, most of the time, I wouldn't drink too much. I'm not in the environment where I can do that. But from time to time, I drink too much. And what I started to notice is that, although I enjoyed drinking, I enjoyed the flavour. So we could call that an upside. The downsides of alcohol starts to outweigh the upside. So I call this the net effect. So for many people, the net effects of alcohol is positive. And for those people, we're not trying to convince you not to drink. But for some people, the net effect of alcohol is actually a negative one. And you might be wondering what it's like to live a life without alcohol. And so there's, there's a phrase for this group of people. And that's super curious. And I only discovered this, this phrase on the internet, as I've been researching my own journey. So this this is a podcast for sober curious people where you drink alcohol. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's bad. And certainly the downsides are starting to outweigh the upsides. When I tell some of my friends, or obviously this is happening less and less now, because my friends know, but certainly at the beginning, when I told some of my friends who just really enjoy drinking, and by the way, I put myself into that category, I was someone that did enjoy drinking, when I tell them that I'm now alcohol free, they kind of say, oh, but is it less fun? Are you having any fun? Because there's the assumption that drinking is all the fun, and not drinking is no fun. So So actually, the way I think about it, they're assuming that drinking alcohol is 100% fun, and not drinking a 0% Fun, when actually I still have 90% of the fun. And maybe you could argue that for when you're drinking one or two or three drinks, and you're in that light merryness, you might be having a little bit more fun. If you were to do a little questionnaire study, during the first couple of drinks, people might be having slightly more fun for one or two drinks. But like I say, being sober is still fun. I'm still enjoying a conversation with my friends and still laughing. And actually, when other people are a bit tipsy, that conversation is funny. So even though I'm sober, I'm still enjoying their tipsy conversation. I still feel a part of it. But then there's a really clear tipping point, though. And it's after, depending on how you absorb alcohol, that it's after two or three or four drinks were actually just, it's no more fun. And really, if you were to be asking people it's, it's probably just not much better at all, and they can't get their words out properly. And, and then and then you start to bring in the downside of the next day. So the sober person that was having 90% fund compared to the drinking person's 100% Fun with the first couple of drinks. Certainly the sober person is still at 90%. So we're having fun, that the person who's drinking more we started to have less fun and then the next day they are hungover, they have very little fun and they're starting to suffer because of the hangover. Whereas the person who was sober wakes up the next day, they're they're lucid, so clear, they know they have no hangover, they can go exercising, they can be with their family. So they're having just as much fun the next day so is a more consistent fun and happiness. That's what I found. It's the consistency of happiness. And although I might be missing out on a little bit of top end fun occasionally, which actually isn't very often at all. I am much more content with that consistency of happiness rather than the peaks and troughs were when I was drinking.

Agi Keramidas  5:27  
Thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the full conversation with Chris Branch in Episode 228. The link is in the show notes. If you've enjoyed this episode, can you think of someone that would find it valuable and share it with them? Thank you so much. And until next time, stand out don't fit in!