 Well, hello and welcome to Jonathan from the heart. I'm Jonathan Astley of Jonathan Astley.com And I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. Our topic, why do men drink too much? Drink too much on a first on a date. Really quickly if you're new to my channel, these are my weekend videos I shoot out on the balcony. Similar to the videos I shoot in my private group called Midlife Love Mastery where I answer your questions via video three times a week and then we have a once a month webinar. So check out the link to my membership group called Midlife Love Mastery. All right, we're going to talk about why men drink too much on a date and this is actually a piggyback from a video I did recently where I shared the story of when I went on a first date with a woman and I'd gotten alcohol poisoning because I didn't have enough food in my stomach and then I acted belligerent on the date and that's the first time I've ever acted in that kind of manner on a date because I really was sick from the alcohol. Now why I'm sharing this with you is a woman went on to make a poll or put a she wrote a comment in the in the comments section with that that belligerent behavior is a reflection of my personality and and I wanted to address that for a second and then I want to go into a deeper conversation about why men drink and so to the extent that there was some truth to what she said I want to you know the fact is is human beings have a dark side and a light side to them you know we have a devil an angel inside of us and so we all have for lack of better word darkness inside of us and often alcohol can actually reveal that. Now does that make a person bad because they have a dark side? Does that make them is that truly a reflection of who they are a hundred percent of the time? No! You know we we can find you know one of the things of my dark side when I'm watching a car race and if I see a car accident while I don't want anyone to get hurt it's kind of exciting to see an accident happen. It doesn't make me a bad person because of that. It's just we all have a dark shadow to us and if you're not familiar with the shadow work I highly recommend you checking out Debbie Ford's work on the shadow work so write this down Debbie Ford's shadow work and Google it because we all have any goic dark side to us. Now with that said I want to go back to the drinking because after my divorce a decade and a half ago I actually was habitually dating and I was drinking heavily at that time. I was drinking heavily and I was drinking because I was avoiding pain. I was avoiding the pain of the divorce. I was avoiding pain of losing my money in the market. I was trying to avoid the pain of my job loss and so there was a lot of negativity in my life and I drank quite a bit on dates. Now I was able to hold my alcohol kind of okay, and I was acting somewhat charming. In fact for those who know my t-shirt I'm wearing right now that's what I do. I drink and I know things. If anyone knows where this is from please post a comment below. Those who know that. By the way for the record this is a Moscow mule cup but I am drinking coffee from it. But going back to I was in heavily in deep deep pain after my divorce and this happens for a lot of people when they're in pain we mass the pain oftentimes by using alcohol or let's not mass the pain numb the pain that's going on and so for a big percentage of people who are out in the dating realm you can see that a lot of them on a first or second date can will drink heavily on a date. I know it has by the way has this ever happened to you? Went out with a guy and he drank heavily on a date and you were thinking yourself red flag? Well red flag simply means and by the way it is a red flag someone who drinks heavily it is a red flag and what should we know about this? Well what I want to lean into today is why is the person drinking so much and what you might want to do just out of curiosity. I mean you don't have to do this but try to find out what pain is going on in their life because the chances are they haven't healed a childhood wound or trauma or an adult trauma that's causing them to seek this numbing agent and I can tell you that for a for almost a decade I was habitually I was doing drugs I was doing drinking alcohol I was habitually dating because I was I was so miserable on the inside and that's oftentimes why people do drink because they're on the miserable they're miserable on the inside. I mean drink heavily I'm not saying you know look at that just because uh someone drinks a glass of wine uh once a night or once a week or something like that I'm not suggesting I'm talking about people who drink heavily especially on a date. So when I did something called the Hoffman process the Hoffman process here's a copy of the book I highly recommend checking this out this is a deep dive into your childhood wounds and traumas that causes one to see that you know causes one to act out in ways that are emotionally unhealthy it causes us to have negative patterns and limiting beliefs in our lives and after doing this program I found my life changed dramatically in fact it was the inspiration for writing for those who know me I'm going to talk about my book what the heck is self-love anyway what the heck is self-love anyway it's a journey of personal development self-help and spiritual work so you can work on that stuff inside of you that is hurting and that's what I want to lean into today is that the reality is is most men who are drinking habitually have they're really hurting in the inside now that doesn't mean you know you should date them I'm not suggesting that it doesn't mean you should save them I just want you to understand what's going on and rather than judging people you know it's sad that I got a lot of negative comments on that post I was being judged as being a bad person you know you don't really know a human being until you see the totality of their life and what they've done we've all done bad things in our lives and we've done good things in our lives some people just do more of one or the other but I'm here to say that a person who drinks heavily on dating is is just simply in pain and they're trying to mask it or avoid their problems and and again this doesn't mean you should date that person and when I said earlier red flag I mean for most people it's a deal breaker deal breaker that's a deal breaker red flag simply means ask more questions and I highly recommend just leaning into what might be going on inside that person from a place of compassion and again it doesn't mean you have to date them I mean you're free will you can do whatever you want I'm just giving you some backdrop as to why this might happen all right I hope that answers your question please post a comment below if this resonated with you if you have something to add I'd like to hear about it I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do first off give myself a big gigantic job to bear hug of self love I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm going to ask you to turn to someone or a pet or even a teddy bear and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and we can all use more love in our lives thanks a bunch bye bye now