 years as you know, and I just, I think we made some progress, but I'm just that kind of person. Kickstarter to the morning, Monday through Saturday, and tech free, Sunday. Evidence that appears real. This alcohol free adventure, insistence. Andy, how are you my friend? Good, top, tip top today. It's so funny when you came on the Zoom chat a minute ago when you said, hi, how are you doing? And it's, I've seen that every day for the last, what, three years or something because you do your inspirational videos every morning. And I set my Facebook to have one near no beer post just showing first so you don't get all that dose of negativity when you first wake up. And for our friends at home, it's Andy running through the forest. It's a beautiful backdrop, just talking about the benefits of living an alcohol free life for at least a period in your life, not about being a monk or going to some extreme. And so from myself, mate, thank you very much for those. Oh no, I absolutely love it. I mean, it's a sort of favorite part of my day. I mean, I do something on one, being I do a lot of it on my own channels now, but every morning I'm out there. I just, it's just such a nice way to connect with people. I didn't, and the truth is behind it, I didn't actually think that was gonna be a big part of what I actually did because when we look at the one, you know, beer business or the movement, sorry, Ruri, the other co-founder is a total extrovert. And I'm the introvert. You know, I'm the type of guy when we go to these meetings, I just wanna hang out by the follow vents and just sort of hope that I bump into someone. Do you know what I mean? Whereas he would like bulldoze to the front. And I never thought I'd be the one that was out front, but I think I'm so connected with the mission and the story that then all of a sudden I turned on the Facebook Live and just found it sort of almost easy to speak. It was, yeah, quite surprising. So I love it. That's my favorite part of my day. Yes. And not just you love, loves it, loves it. Not, it's not just you that loves it and obviously it connects with an awful lot of people. An awful lot of people. What I do if it's okay and I'm not just gonna talk over the top of you the whole podcast but I just wanna tell you how I got to hear of the one year no beer. Brilliant. And so I basically, I drank for about 30 years, drank drugs, the whole shebang. It was almost like part of my lifestyle across 80 different countries. I got drunk, right? And as with all these things and as with the sort of cycle of addiction, it comes at a cost and it got to the point with me where the negatives were just and I'm not talking about the addiction I've been through here now. I'm just talking about the negatives have been a habitual drinker and having that as a permanent aspect in your life starts to outweigh the benefits, starts to actually really outweigh the benefits not just in terms of health, relationships, depression, all these sort of things but you also end up making an idiot of yourself more and more and then having to do that. Oh God, who've I got to apologize to today? So I woke up on a bench in Paddington station four o'clock in the morning, I think it's 4.20 in the morning. I'd gone up there for a Royal Marines reunion to see all the guys for our core birthday, got so drunk on the train with another boot neck, that's Marine, that I'd obviously sat down on a bench in Paddington to get my phone out and work out where my accommodation was and that's how I'd stayed for about six hours. I woke up, luckily my backpack was still under my arm and I just knew in that moment Andy, this isn't good, you know, I was a father then, which has been a relatively new thing for me. My boy was just a baby and anything could have happened while I was on that bench, right? Okay, not trying to be a drama queen, it didn't but someone could have come up and stabbed me, could have stolen my stuff, my son's story could have gone a very tragic way and I knew in that moment I had to do something about it. Now concurrently with all of this, I'd been thinking of taking 12 months off alcohol for so long, right? You know, and I tried the, let's just drink on days with a Y in them and that doesn't work. I tried the, let's just do it out part. Well, that just, well, let's have a party every day. That didn't work, right? Anyway, cutting a bit of a long story short, I'm at this reunion and I'm chatting to a friend of mine, Carl or Smudger and I said, mate, I think I've got to quit the booze or, you know, at least cut down and he turned to me and said, oh, all the lads are doing this one, you know, beer, right? Now I'm that stupid at times, Andy. I thought it was a hashtag. I thought you gave up the booze for a year and you put out on your Twitter or your Facebook, hey, I'm having a year off the booze, hashtag one year, no beer. I didn't realize it was your wonderful organization. And so I'm, I've quit the booze. I've been about three months into it and suddenly a podcast pops up somewhere on my, somewhere on the internet on my social media. And it's my friend, Olly Ollerton, the former SBS operative who hosts the SES Who Dares Wind show. And I think he was chatting to Rory, your business partner. And it was so affirming to hear a fellow serviceman, someone who was, you know, very professional in his job and someone coming from our background, so Navy that just we, at least back in the day, we drank like fish. It was just what we were. It's what we did in every situation. And to hear him saying that he'd realized that his life had got to a point where the alcohol wasn't working anymore like it wasn't in mine was such a powerful thing. But also concurrently, I'm realizing, oh, one year no beer is an organization. And that's how I got to hear of your good sales. And that's how I started watching the videos every morning. And I was three months into it then. So I figured, you know, I must be doing something, right? So I didn't sign up for your wonderful course, although I recommend to everybody that they do if they're struggling with alcohol. So yes, that's why we're sat in front of each other now. Yeah, and how long has it been since then? Oh, again, in a nutshell, I did one year and it goes like that. Yeah. Undoubtedly, the feeling of accomplishment being a drinker pretty much every day for 30 years and never being able to stop. I'd leave work five o'clock and I was a substance misuse specialist, right? For three of those years. And it would be, right, trying to do all the CBT on myself and the positive self-talk, right? Don't drive past Tesco or the off-license, and what would happen? I'd get in the car and by the time I'd shut the door, mate, I'd already taught myself into, right, free beers won't hurt, will it? And it never was free. It was more like 12 cans of very strong lager. And so the buzz I got off, friends, we will get Andy on the podcast, don't worry. But this is the beauty of these chats. So the feeling of accomplishment to just make this decision and go for it and then realize that it's not just that alcohol doesn't need to play such a part in your life, it's just that your life is fricking so much better without it, you're waking up hangover free. You know, you don't have that coating of depression that just follows you everywhere you go. You anxieties come down. You get out and you smash that run in the morning where ordinarily you'd be like, where's the alarm, alarm clock, right? I found I could write just as well sober as I had done for probably seven or eight years drunk or let's just say, slightly inebriated. And that was enough for me to keep up that one year, you know, without, I knew where I was going, right? But what happened is I got to the end of it and I'd been on opiate medication for a year from a severely damaged disc in my spine that I'd had, I think I had four surgeries on it in total, one proper, the open surgery, the rest were these injections that they put into you. And it took me a long time to get off the opiate medication. It's really, I don't wanna say evil, but it can be. Yeah. And it was a, you know, it was like a military campaign for me to we myself offer it every day and be strong, just the same things you do with any addiction, right? Or any, should I say, dependence. And when I got to the end of it, it coincided with my one year off the beer or thereabouts. And I looked to my partner and I went, yes, one year, no beer. And she said, yeah, but it wasn't quite no substances, Chris, was it? And I was like, yeah, you're right. Okay, I'll do another one. So I did a second year off the beer. And the only reason I broke my duck or whatever the expression is, is I ran the length of the country. I ran from John O'Groats to Land's End, an ultramarathon a day, carrying all my camp and equipment and sleeping by the side of the road. And I ran to raise awareness of this alarming epidemic of veteran suicide we're currently in. Right, yeah. And to raise money for a veteran's charity. And I got halfway down the country and I got what we call in the military a shin splint in my right leg. So basically a stress fracture. And I took a couple of painkillers and they didn't work and I hobbled on for three days. And it got to the point where I was just in agony, absolute agony, I couldn't even hobble, let alone walk, let alone run, but I still had 500 miles to do. And anyone that knows me just knows I don't give up, it's not in my nature. If I say I'm gonna do something, I just get out and I do it, right? Plus I'm a Royal Marine's commander. So kind of got that legacy to uphold. And there was an off-license and I looked at it and I suddenly thought, rum, that's what this equation needs, rum. And I went in, I bought one of those small bottles, not wrapped in brown paper like our American brothers and sisters, but everyone knows what I mean. And I sat on this grass bank and I just went, and at the same time, it was very unusual from all the other times where I'd broken, I've tried a period of sobriety in as far as I wasn't doing it, Andy, because I wanted to, I was doing it because I had to and I didn't want to. I really didn't want to, I was just like, but my thing was like, Chris, worry about that later. And that was it. I had to slug it out, rum, Andy. And within seconds, especially as I'd taken a couple of painkillers, that pain in my leg was in, it was obviously still painful, but it was dulled enough that I could keep running. So then I ran 500 miles having a tot of rum. I ran. Cut very long, sorry friends, I know I'm talking a lot, but I think this helps sort of set the table out. What happened is I then made a decision that irregardless of whether I drank or not, my life was better without it. That was the switch in my head. And since then, that was 2018. So a couple of years ago or coming up for a year and a half ago, I will drink, but I absolutely know, A, it doesn't do me any favors. It's more just sort of old habits die hard, but B, through this mindset that I've developed through going through and what in substance misuse circles, we call the cycle of change, which is a constant re-framing of your mind and your thought process and your relationship with the thing in your life that's causing you the problem. Through that process, I'm now able to have a drink and then go, yeah, bollocks. Who am I trying to kid? So that's kind of like where I am. So I, on a percentage of a hundred alcohols out of my life, like 99% now, and I'm more than happy with that. Brilliant. And I think that's where a lot of people want to get with it. Especially when they sort of start their early breaks from alcohol or be 28 days or 90 days. I think the dream in truth, probably for most people is to just regain that total sense of control where they just don't need it, but they can choose to on their terms have a drink if they want on occasions, which is a nice vision and is a nice dream. But you know yourself, that's really hard. It's quite hard to manage. And I think you have to get to that place. You have to have done the longer stints of being alcohol-free to basically get to that place. We don't need it at all. And then it's a different reintroduction to your life. Like you've just described there where it's like, you know, I know I can do this on occasion. I'm gonna feel like shit. I'm gonna be rubbish after it. I'm gonna be grumpy. I'm gonna be tired. Tactically, do I wanna do that on occasions because there's a wedding or some big event? Then that's your choice if you're not a main bowl. Equally, I think what happens for a lot of people, myself included, you get such a head of steam up. You get all this momentum in your life. It's like, why would I ever do, you know, for me, it's like, why would I ever do that? Like, what's the point? I don't get it. What's the upside? Especially when, you know, you've done the weddings and you've done all the big social events where I would have been really tempted to have a drink in the past. It's like, I don't need that. I just, no, that's never ever getting into my life again. This is just my mindset. It's like, I'm never ever giving up another day on a hangover. I'm just not doing that. So therefore it's easy for me. It's done. And actually I think, ironically, the really hard place to be is in that moderation place. I think it's difficult. I think it's much easier just to go, no, what's the point? And I think that's what a lot of people wrestle with. But equally, I think if you do a longer steam, you've got a much higher chance of being able to manage that in a really efficient, effective way that doesn't then creep back into your life and start tripping you up again. Yes, it's that thing, isn't it? Whereas we grow older, they talk about the plasticity in the neurons in your brain. You're so, or your neural pathways that the older you get, the more kind of rigid they become. And then it becomes harder to change. I don't know if that makes sense to you at all. Yeah, but equally, you know yourself, life is just a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? And I totally believe in that. You've got to believe that you can change. And I think that's what trips a lot of people up at the start. There is that cultural belief. This is gonna be really hard and it is an unbelievably hard challenge for most people in truth, especially when all of your role models, probably all of the people that you love in your life, all the people that you admire are doing the very thing that you're trying to avoid. So you're getting all those cultural messages. You're getting all those cultural clues that actually this must be fun because all of my mates are still doing it. And look at them every now and again, I glance them on Instagram and they're having a brilliant time. I'm missing out. So to have the courage to do something different that basically 80% of the population is doing and you're gonna turn the other way and try something new, that's incredible, right? And it's incredibly hard at the same time but it's the most rewarding thing you'll ever do, in my opinion. It's the greatest gift that was ever given to me. It's the thing that's completely changed my life and to set the scene from where I was, I wasn't in a place of hardcore addiction or dependency, not at all. And that's really important in my story. I was just a middle-lane drinker and I'll describe that as someone that drinks averagely, someone that drinks heavily, someone that drinks not at all, someone that drinks moderately, right? And I've just described probably 80% of the population right there, right? Everyone fits in that bracket. Even the people that go, no, I only moderate. I'm like, okay, what about weddings? Well, no, I don't moderate on weddings. All right, what about birthdays? Well, no, I have three or four drinks on a birthday. Three drinks in a row is considered binge drinking. I mean, like when you actually look at the real stats behind this, as a culture out of sort of eyes and minds have adjusted to such a level around alcohol to free drinks. Let's be honest, that's a warm-up for most people but actually like the stats play out that's been drinks drinking. So, you know, for me, I was in that bracket, middle-lane drinker, broker in the city, massive part of my life in every which way in the same way that it becomes a huge part in the forces of your life. It's just what you do, right? I was a broker, I entertain, I take people out. I've got the magic card that I can put behind the bar and I don't have to pay for anything, right? I'm just gonna absolutely rinse it to the max. And that's what I did. And don't get me wrong. There was a big period of that. I absolutely loved it, you know? And I think that's important in people's stories. It's not to vilify. I'm not going backwards and vilify and all those moments that I had around alcohol. Far from it, it's brilliant times. Equally, I had a lot more shit times and when you really get some space from it and you reflect on it, you go, hold on a minute. I'm actually waking up feeling awful all the time. It's not just one day, it's two days, it's three days. So then I started to work it out my brain and go, hold on a minute. So, let's do the maths. If I'm drinking just twice a week and it's taking me out for free in a bit days, that means seven days a week, 100% of the time I'm underperforming because of two nights out, 100%. Imagine if you go three times or four times. So you only have to go out twice a week and that means that you are underperforming 100% of the time. That's not acceptable for me. It got to that point of like, I'm not allowing that in my life anymore. I set up a new broken business and the great irony of that was that I knew that business was going to foul unless I was on top form. And the only way for me to get on top form was to not drink. Yet the paradox was that how could you possibly be a broker and not drink? You know, the guy that I admired most in my industry, my hero, they basically set me up in that business, turned around and said to me, if you continue not drinking, your career's over. I went for a bit of social pressure, right? There was my life, it was everything. And there's the guy that I admired most telling me, I've got to keep drinking. Otherwise, you know, I'm finished in the industry, but equally, you know, I feel very blessed. I found the courage to do something different. So I didn't have to overcome an addiction far from it or a dependency, but I had to overcome a mounting of social pressure. And I think in truth, that's what most people face. I think they face a huge amount of social pressure in their own lives. They face the fear of change, right? Fear of change is a massive thing, right? No one likes to change. Change is really hard, but here's another thing about change. Once you change once, you get the buzz for it and you can change it again and again and again. If I go back to my story 10 years ago, you know, I was known like well-known as that larger-than-life drinker, ex-professional footler, larger-than-life drinker, overweight, unfit, unhealthy, always in the pub. First in, last out, that was my character, right? And I played up to that character. So then the thought of taking that away, that scared the life out of me. It was like, I don't know what's underneath anymore. It's been so long since I've experienced like the real me, I'm a bit lost. Am I that larger-than-life boozer or is there something else underneath? And that was a real, that for me was the biggest obstacle to overcome. Like, what's going to happen to four pints, fun time handy, where's he going to go? You know, is everyone going to disown me? My friends, is my wife going to run off with the postman that likes a drink? I don't know. And these are the obstacles that I think a lot of people face outside of the classic addiction and dependency. I think the majority of people that, where I do my work, it's all about prevention in that space rather than necessarily in addiction or dependency. And I think the obstacles that those people face are those fear of change, social pressure. These things are absolutely huge in our life. But when you overcome them, and we get into that now, you just gift yourself the greatest momentum in your life ever. That's what I love about it. Yeah, it's an interesting one that you hear this said a lot in non-drinking circles about the social pressure. I just want to say to the other side of the coin, I was like really proud of myself as being the only one in a pub not drinking. And I've turned up to reunions with 300 guys there. All of them are pissed out there, you know? And I never had anyone try to force me into drink. I had people go, go on, Chris. And all I used to say is, all right, could you call my Jenny? That's my girlfriend. Could you just call my Jenny and just tell her that you want me to have a drink? And if she says yes, I'll have a drink. And what I meant by that is, do you really want to sabotage me? My life's going really well and I'm getting stuff done that I want to and I've overcome something that was, you know, big part of my life for 30 years and you want to destroy that just so I have one beer to make. And then they go, oh no, right, okay, just. But again, I found a lot of people were really impressed by it. They're like, what are you drinking? Oh, it's Coke. Really? Wow, yeah, I've been thinking about quitting, you know, cutting down. So do you come across that at all? Yeah, and this is the irony of that story in many ways. So I stopped drinking in this very heavily pressurized environment and really quickly it had the opposite effect. Actually exactly that. People were unbelievably impressed that how could you possibly be out, whining and dining, doing all this stuff and not drinking? Now it took me a while to get there and there was a lot of false starts. Trust me, I was the king of turning like almost biblical water into wine. You know, it's the classic like you described you turn up to the bar, I'm not drinking, I'm not drinking before I knew it. Glass of vino, colapso or whatever or a beer. So there was all of that and that was really good learning for me, right? But the key point was I didn't give up. I didn't sort of try and sweep it under the carpet and hide with the masses and have a drink. I was like, no, I'm gonna figure this thing out. I know this is a psychological thing. You know, at that point I went back to university and went back twice in the end part-time whilst working to do a degree and then a master's degree in positive psychology and coaching psychology I wanted to understand this thing and figure it out. This behavioral change thing. But what started to happen when I built up that momentum, it became my unique selling point in the industry because I was the only person in our industry ever that proactively stopped drinking and was quite happy to show up and be around it and still get stuck in and not drink and quite quickly. It's amazing how people's view of you change and I touched on it earlier. I was known as this larger than life big drinker. Fast forward, probably less than a year, right? In my mind, it's gonna take forever. I was known as this super healthy, alcohol-free guy that completely people's opinion of me changed in less than a year. And I think that goes to show that you can have the courage to do really big things in your life and all those fears that are holding you back that you're going to lose friends or things are going to change, they will change absolutely, but for the better. If you can discover who you really are and get aligned with that, you're super pound. And like you said, so I can go to the biggest events and not drink and love it and own it. Do you know how powerful that is? How like the courage that comes from that when everyone else is pissing it up and they're pissing it up because then they're scared. They're nervous in those social situations that don't know how to handle themselves and you walk in total confidence, not drinking. It's unbelievable power to you, unbelievable courage. And when you get on that little train, this is the point and this is where I do loads of my work now is helping people reach their full potential because once you understand and you overcome the behemoth of a challenge that's taken a break from alcohol, it gives you the courage to do it again. So in my own story, this is seven years ago when I started this now, I decided to optimize my diet, my nutrition because I got unbelievably consistent because that's the thing when you take a break from alcohol, you get that consistency back. Like I knew I was going to show up every day on top form. I knew I could eat a nutritious diet every day because I wasn't going to hit it over the head with stodged food and pizza and late night kebabs, right, all that had gone. I knew that I was going to show up in the gym every day because I was again going to flake on a gym session because I was too hungover. So that consistency built that momentum. I started to analyze the food that I ate and I challenged another massive, in my opinion, stereotype was that I had to eat meat to be a man. And I looked at the best optimal diet for me and it was the plant-based diet or vegan style diet wherever you want to look at it. So I then had the courage and it takes a lot of courage to go plant-based. Now you can imagine my clients just freaking them out, only weeks before I was this larger than life boozer. Then I turn up, I'm not drinking, they just about get over that. That's like a proper jaw drop moment. Then the menu comes around, what would you like, sir? Any allergies? I'm like, well, yeah, I'm plant-based vegan. This is seven years ago before it came trendy. It was like, I don't know if it's going on. But again, this is the momentum that comes from taking a break from alcohol. It gives you the courage to test the conventional wisdom because in my opinion, wherever I see conventional wisdom, Mark Twain says it best. When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. I have found consistently in my life, conventional wisdom is wrong. Challenge everything. And when you've got your alcohol-free superpowers, it gives you the clarity to challenge things in your life that before you would never have challenged. You just assumed, because you're just going through life, survival mode that I need to meet, for example, to be a man, totally wrong. I'm in better shape now at 46 than when I was playing professional football at 23 because of these type of mythologies that have been crushed by, again, the foundation of taking a break from the booze. I'm going off on one. It's what tends to happen. No, it's so valid, mate. It's so valid. When I, as I said, when I ran the length of the country, I practiced as well. My biggest thing is alkaline diet. I want to eat like my ancestors. And ever since I've done that, which has been 17, might even be 18 years now, I don't get sick. So I watch everybody every year, get the coughs, the colds, the flus. They all blame it on someone in the office. And I think, no, your body is your temple. If you eat, you know, people call, say, come up with names like paleo and all paleo. No, I just think that we're predominantly vegetarian. And when you keep your body pH neutral, you impervious to illness. You just, well, I am at least, right? So I went up to John O'Groats and that was it. I'm a sort of 98% or I practice a 98% plant-based diet. Yeah, I'm about exactly that. And I didn't do any training when I was up there because I'd been through this disablement with my spine. So it wasn't like I'd been out doing, you know, 30 mile training runs very, I couldn't do any training. So I literally went up there, put a 15 kilo rucksack on, which is the weight of what you'd carry if you go on holiday, right? And I knew I was going to smash it, you know? Okay, the broken leg thing was a challenge, but challenges are there just to get over. But I just knew and I made a promise on the day. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable. So you had a 15 kilo backpack, you hadn't trained and you managed to do almost ultra marathon a day. That's just, that's just, that's just... But it's coming back to what you were saying, Andy, is you just, your life becomes, you've become a different person to who you were. And this isn't me. I'm not saying it's to big myself up. I'm saying it to big up the human race. We're all capable of running the length of the country. It's just some people decide to, you know, let others control them. Their thoughts, you know, whether that's their peers or social media or mainstream media. People like me, I decided a long time ago, sometimes for good, sometimes for worse, I was going to steer my own shit. Yeah. But being in this plant-based state that you said, it just gives you wings. That's all I can say. It opens you up to what you're really capable of. Absolutely. And, you know, I've found that in my own life. And just hearing your story there, I think that's an important part of this journey as well, is listening to other people's stories that look a bit like you and sound a bit like you and seeing the amazing things they can do. And it's not down to physical ability or IQ. It is belief a lot of the time. It's just belief. The limits that we put on our life are all down to our beliefs. I totally, you know, again, I believe in that. And that's why I spend a lot of my time reading, a lot of my time in masterminds. I'm on courses all the time, educating myself again, I haven't left school at 16, I'm sure like many of your lads in the forces, I went back and educate myself. I wanted to learn. I wanted to like surround myself with the beliefs of people that could achieve the most amazing things. And, you know, even when people come and train with me, I'm like, wherever you are in your life, whatever you want to achieve, someone's already achieved that from a position way behind where you are in life. Someone's already achieved those dreams so it can be done. There is no limits to our life. None. Apart from the ones that we put on ourselves in our mind. I'm a massive believer in that. And it was that original book that we spoke about before we came on air, which was The Awakening the Giant Within by a guy called Tony Robbins, who I love and admire. I read that book, My Mid-30s, and it fundamentally changed my life. It was absolutely huge for me. That's where my studio comes crashing down round my ears. Ba-da, ba-da. There we go. Oh, that looks like a really old version. That looks like an original. Yeah. I've got a photo of me and Tony taking... No. Oh. 30 years ago. That's a bit of family. Alexandra Palace in London. Yeah, it's interesting. Why was it? I was on a train. I think I was travelling from Exeter to Plymouth. And I went in a bookshop and I wanted something to read on the journey, albeit not that big a journey from Exeter to Plymouth. And there was a book there. And this is before all the self-help type guru stuff was on the market. Back then you had how to win friends and influence people. Yeah. Classic text. And Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, right? Yeah. Both classic reading. I'd advise anyone to watch them. But I went in this bookshop with a WHTMS. I spun the carousel around and there was a book called Some Kind of Like Be the Best You Can Be Title, right? And I was just getting into business back then. Whilst I was in the Marines, I was running a business on the side. I was looking to, you know, make a success of it, right? And I bought that book and that was really the first stage Andy on my journey of development. Before that, I was just a, like a doer or a, you know, you tell me what to do and I go and I was in the military for a start, right? You know, I ate the meat diet because, well, we just absolutely knew no different. But yeah, you can say that point, even though things, you know, have gone way up and way, way down from that point, but that was the starting point where I decided to invest in myself. Yeah. And that was the point where I opened a text and you just hear stuff you never heard before. Yeah. You know, it might be a simple thing, like always say thank you to people. You never know where they might be when, you know, where you need to get just, just silly little things like that that no one had ever, ever said. So when I left the military, I use my grant. You've got like a 2000 pound resettlement grant. I spent all of it to go and see Tony Robbins. And he taught me the fire walk, which I've done subsequently on several occasions. And yeah, my God, that was it. And he talks a lot about diet, doesn't he? And I've watched the way his diet has changed. Yeah, I mean, so when I got into it, I just explored every person that he mentioned from Dr. Phil Mathetown to Stu Mittleman. Stu Mittleman, I think, broke all the ultra distance running records, didn't have any cart legini's knee, which I've really identified with, because that was when it finished my footballing career and that they were all on plant-based style diets. Again, all of this stuff, it's like you read one book or you take one course and it leads to another book or another course and then you just start levelling up all the time. It just opens your mind up to new ideas. And that's a really important point about the whole alcohol thing. Or I think addiction or anything along those spaces, whatever level you're at is that I think it makes you realise that you're not immortal. I think it makes you realise that the plans that you had and the track that you were following actually was misleading you. And I think that's the truth for most people. I think if you just follow the natural path of life, that evolutionary brain of ours is misleading us all. I think that's why there's widespread unhappiness and people are very unfulfilled in their lives. Whereas if you actually take control of it, and that's what all of this thinking taught me, you can just transform everything. And I think what happens when you've had some form of relationship with alcohol, it makes you realise this. It makes you ready to listen anew. And you're open to new ideas. And you're open to listening to thought leaders and thinkers because you realise maybe for the first time ever, that actually the path that you on was misleading you. And I think that's the big difference. And I think that's why I love the alcohol-free community and the space around it because people are ready. They want more. And that's why right now everything I do, I run a programme called the Opus Affiliate programme, a place called the Mind Body Gym, which is all designed really for people that are partway on their alcohol-free adventure. So they've already got a bit of momentum, maybe 30 days plus. They're feeling that tug to something more. They've got a bit of momentum. They've got that brightness in their eyes. And they want to develop it themselves. And they're ready to listen maybe for the first time ever to new ideas about how our brain works and how our habits work and how we can optimise our life. And that's what I do now. That's my biggest passion. In fact, the reason I do all this was not because of the stopping drinking thing, because we create a great place to help people do that. It was because of what happened next. That's why I'm here because I got that momentum, that foundation that alcohol gives us and leveraged that to kickstart everything in my life from writing books to degrees to businesses to relationships. It all came from that seed of then thinking differently and being open to all of these new self-development ideas. And that's when I stumbled in to Anthony Robbins 10 years ago at that very moment that I was just thinking, I think I'm over this alcohol thing. So like you, it sat there for a couple of years, but that was the spark. That was the seed that I came straight back to and went, right, I understand that you can develop yourself. I understand. And I'll just share one thing from that book that changed my life. It was this. It was a quote. It's not events that shape our lives, but our beliefs about them. It's not events that shape our lives, but our beliefs about them. That just changed my life. That quote comes from a guy called Epic Tatus from 2000 years ago, great philosopher, basically said the same thing. Anthony Robbins picked it up and put it in his book. But it just said to me, oh, I can decide because you have control over one thing and one thing only your beliefs. I can decide what my beliefs are. If I control my beliefs on the inside, I control everything on the outside because you can't control any of that stuff that happens out there. You can only control what happens inside, but you can take control of it. That for me was a game changer. The moment I had that, my business took off. I started to think differently. Relationships took off from that one moment. So it's powerful stuff if you catch it at the right time. Oh, massively, Andy, massively. It's that thing, isn't it? There's no such thing as a bad experience. There's just experiences. Yeah, it's how you frame them and how you decide to anchor them in your life or not anchor them as the case may be. I mean, my 30 years in the wilderness of addiction is testament to that. I'm probably one of the few people. I'm really proud that I've been through addiction. I hear people talk about it in such negative terms and it's like, dude, didn't you learn anything from, you know? Didn't you find stuff about yourself that you never knew? Didn't it help you to shape your belief system and to take action in a different direction? I think for lots of people, it's a great gift. I genuinely believe that. And I know it doesn't feel like it when you're in the shit and you're struggling, but I think ultimately if you catch it in the right way, it's the greatest gift. If I hadn't had some form of relationship alcohol, I would never be here now. In fact, I'd have been quite happily trundling along in that five out of 10 doing my... You know what the truth is, I'd probably be dead by now. I had early onset heart disease. I discovered it in my mid-30s. That was pure lifestyle, like the outrageous lifestyle that I was living. And I would have been the classic that would have been one of those guys at a super stressful job that just killed over, you know, mid-40, just boom, gone. No doubt. But now through changing my diet and my relationship with alcohol, I've actually reversed that heart disease, which is super cool, right? Can be done if you eat an optimal diet and you look after yourself, reversed that heart disease in my life. So yeah, I'm absolutely with you. I think it can be in the right way, a greatest gift in many ways. And there's lots of literature around this. It's a brilliant book called The Second Mountain by a guy called David Brooks that people might be interested in. It's all about this second journey, the second half of life. And the ubiquitous story through all the great literature is that there's a fall before the rise. Something happens. There's a marriage break up. There's redundancy. There's a bereavement. There's a job loss. There's an addiction. There's a problem. It is like the ubiquitous story over and over again that in that fall, you get the opportunity to come out the other side and rise. And I think that's why, again, we have these wonderful transformations on people's lives around alcohol. And again, that's the bit that I want to, I love is the transformation, right? Come on, you've had this experience. Let's kick on. Let's use this leverage to create your optimal life and reach your full potential. I love it. Yes. I think I realised at a young age, I was homeless for the first time at 15. And I just remember thinking, yes, who wants an easy life? I'm being a bit facetious, but what I meant by that is even at that young age, I realised if you don't have experiences and they're not all going to be good, how can you learn any, how can you learn? How can you find out who you are? How can you learn about other people? How can you learn about society? If all you have is everything handed to you on a plate, probably going to end up either very boring or very unhappy. And I think that's what happens. And I think there's a huge resilience problem in our culture at the moment. People can't handle failure. They can't handle setbacks. And you see it all the time. And I'm fearful for our younger generation that are coming through that seem to be very avoidant of setback and failure. Whereas I think it's, again, failure is part of the journey. And that was actually a big discovery for me on the alcohol-free process. And I think this trips up so many people. We fall into this perception that we've got to be perfect. And if we're not perfect, that's it. I'm out. So for example, I would see lots of people that will start with great intention on their alcohol-free adventure and they'll get to 21 days alcohol-free. And they'll have a slip-up, right? They'll have a drink. And what happens for a lot of people? That's it. The hands go up. It's like, I've failed. I'm a failure. What's the point? I might as well just drink. I've done 21 days. But in reality, they might have been drinking every day. They've had an unbelievable amount of progress in your life. So I'm all up for streaking, keeping on top of how many days of alcohol-free. But if there's a slip-up in there, so what? Dust yourself off. Come back stronger. Like, if you look at that behavioral change loop that you mentioned earlier on, it looks like it's a perfect circle. It's not. It's a corkscrew of change. If you look to the literature and the science behind it, it takes most people four or five times around that loop before they make lasting change. What does that tell us? Failure, slip-up, stumble, blips, whatever you want to call them, departures from the wagon. It's part of the process. That's when you learn. We learn more by getting it wrong than we ever do by getting it right. So rather than run away from those moments and use them as an excuse, because a lot of people do, as an excuse to give up. Like, let it hurt because it should hurt. But dust yourself off. Learn from that experience. Come back stronger. That's how you build that resilience. And it might happen again. And it might happen again. But so what? Dust yourself off. Come back stronger. And eventually you're cracking. And you'll keep that learning, because that's the really insightful stuff when it goes wrong, which I know we don't want to know, but that's the truth. The very simple way to do that is just have a rule in your life. Turn every negative into a positive. Brilliant. If you slip up and break your leg tomorrow morning, just change that around. Rather than woe is me. Oh, my God, look what's happened. Can everyone feel sorry? You know, you've got to flip it. How you do that is up to the individual, but I think I adopted that philosophy and many years ago now, and I just applied it. It's, you know, and then, then everything, then your life doesn't become this negative drone all the time where everything's like, why does this happen to me? It's about know it. What? What I want to pick your brains about me is. I definitely realized one of my triggers for drinking. And it's only one. I mean, I can drink happy, sad, stress, relaxed. It's a bit of an enigma really, isn't it? Sometimes. But what I do realize is when I put myself under a lot of, let's just say pressure, obviously work related, got things coming in, meetings there. There's a lot of, oh, my God, I think I've stretched my, I can't commit. What I've realized is, is that stress builds big trigger to go and have a drink, isn't it? Very big trigger. What I'd like to do or what I'm doing, Andy, is I'm starting to try to step out of that, to see it for what it is, to put a bit of distance. Even if it's just, I stopped what I'm doing. I've got this guy on YouTube that does this body drumming. He's a guy I met in Korea, funny enough. And he'll put a, like a rock track on and he'll just do this body drumming. And I find it so relaxing just to sit there or sit in this chair and just spend seven or eight minutes just not thinking about anything. So with that in mind, how have you found the sort of meditation field? Yeah, so I went away and trained in the end in meditation to become a mindfulness awareness coach because that was a big part of my adventure. Again, it was about thinking differently, but the great irony was for me, when I was drinking, I was often too anxious to meditate. And that sounds bizarre because the paradox is in there, but I was often too anxious to meditate. I was a bit jittery all the time. I was a bit hungover. I was a bit jittery. I didn't like to sit still and I certainly didn't like to think about breathing because if I start to think too closely about breathing, actually made me feel slightly uncomfortable. So meditation took me a little while to get my head around. I didn't understand it at first. I fell into the classic trap of, and I'm sure many of the guys and girls in the forces would experience this. If I was going to meditate, I was going to be the world's best meditator. I was like, if there's an Olympics for meditation, I want to know where it is and I'm going to go and win gold. How do I train? Who do I find? Just give it to me. I'm up for it, which is completely the wrong approach to meditation. So that took me a little while to get my head around. I tried it twice, didn't quite stick. And then the third time I did a full MBSR, mindfulness based stress relief course, since done five of those. And I loved it. That got me into a place and surrounded me with people that were on a similar sort of journey in many ways. And the instructors were fantastic. And it was really insightful. And it took me away from the sort of quick 10 minute meditation to something a bit deeper and longer. And in that space, it became part of my life. And it still was part of my life. And it always will be a big part of my life now. Although I've sort of tamed it down in many ways. It's not so long. It's probably like 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. But also what I do throughout the day, because I have a massively long day. I'm sure like yourself, I sort of kick it off six AM. I probably don't finish till eight PM most evenings. Like it's a big long 12, 14 hour day. Like that would be impossible. One, if I was drinking, there's no in a billion years that could ever exist. But I also wouldn't be possible if I was optimizing my nutrition, optimizing my movement and building in recovery breaks. I do a lot of this in my office athlete course, but it's really important to build those in. Think like an athlete. That's in my mind. It's like why are an athlete's goals any different to mine? They're not right. I think that's important to be honest with you because if you really want to win an Olympic medal or if you want to pull back the layers, you're going to want to win the Olympic medal or you want to pull back the layers. You're going to want to pull back the layers when you peel back the layers, whether you want to win an Olympic medal or you want to power up your career. Ultimately, if you pull back the layers, you always get to the same place. Why, why, why? I want to be fulfilled and happy. Therefore, there's no difference between the athlete wanting to win gold and and to accumulate all the wins from the hard work, they have to recover in the right way, otherwise they won't get those small benefits. Therefore, again, so my day is punctuated with a little one minute, two minute meditations throughout the day to keep me in that recovery mode so I can bounce back stronger. So yeah, it's taken on a bigger meaning for me than just the sort of almost stress relief relaxation of it. I use it as a tool now to perform sort of longer and harder as it were. It's super important to me. Andi, are you able for those of us out there that might not actually know what meditation is? I mean, you hear that word, you think of monks dressed in orange robes in Thailand or something, right? Or in Tibet, what can you, yeah, can you explain like what is it? How do you do it? What are you trying to achieve or what do you achieve? Yeah, so again, meditation is one of these things. Because it becomes almost so sort of well known now in the media and popular press, people sort of think they understand it and I think there's lots of misconceptions about it. So as you rightly said, it's nothing to do with fluffy clouds and robes and arm, although that can be part of many people's meditation. Ultimately, the idea is to come into the present moment and you can do that in many different ways. You can do that whilst walking, you can do that whilst running, you can do that whilst brushing your teeth, doing the ironing, or you can do the formal type of meditation, which is to use the breath as an anchor, right? Because the breath is always with you and the idea is always the same when you're repeating a mantra in your head, again, when you're focusing on the breath or sights and sounds is to just come into the present moment. And in that place, the idea being if your mind starts to wander and it does, because it's not about being perfectly serene, because that's another, I think, misconception. It's like people think, I'm doing it wrong because my mind's really busy. Shouldn't it be complete white bliss in my mind? It really is ever like that. It's about just being in the present moment and being non-judgmental about whatever's there for you and the state of your mind on that day, because some days your mind's super busy. It just wants to whiz around everywhere. And it's really hard to get it to settle. Other days it comes into like quiet calm really quickly. So I think it's about treating yourself with kindness and realizing if your mind is generating thoughts, that's because you're normal, right? Everyone's mind generated. It's not about stopping thoughts. It's about getting some distance from those thoughts and staying in the present moment. But equally, right? Being in flow is mindfulness for me. So when I say being in flow, if you've ever taken part in a sport, for example, and you know you like in the zone, you know athletes describe being in the zone, that's mindfulness, right? You are completely in the present moment. You're not worrying about things in the future or things in the past. You are locked in to that activity. That's what mindfulness is like. And I think what it does, the practice of mindfulness gives you the ability to get into that state on command rather than waiting for that football game or painting or whatever it is for you that brings those lovely flow states. I think it gives you the ability to get in there really quickly on command like I suggested earlier on. So just to sort of summarize, the whole concept is incredibly, incredibly simple. It's about coming into the present moment. Now there are the sort of the religious connotations around that, for example, Buddhism and whatnot that would use this as part of their spiritual practice and many religions. In fact, all religions, if you look into them, use some form of coming into the present moment as part of their religious practice, whether that's prayer or forms of meditation. So there's that side to it. Where I'm coming at this from is very much like a performance tool in the end. It's like, I know this is incredibly good for me. I know it allow me to perform longer and harder. It gets me into that flow state, quietens my mind so I can come back stronger. So in summary, it's about just coming into the present moment. That's it. However you get there for you, you can do it through the breath, you can do it through walking. So there's lots of different ways to achieve it. It's not always this formal headspace app approach. There's millions of different ways to get there. And I'll just say explore it until you get it, until it clicks with you. That's the key. Yes. Very well surmised. It's interesting to note that in the religious texts, or certainly the Old Testament and New Testament, when you hear the word prayer, which to us that were brought up, you know, in Sunday schools or whatever, you think it's dear God, can I please have a BMX for Christmas? Or don't make my tort as ill or this kind of stuff, right? But no, it actually means meditation. Jesus, when he says, you know, there's nothing you cannot achieve without fasting and prayer. He means what Andy's just described. Yeah, exactly. And all of these practices have their roots in, you know, religion and the ancient texts and whatnot. And you know, even meditation is sort of 2,000-odd year-old tradition that John Kabat-Zinn brought to the West. He was an American guy, I brought it to the West and called it mindfulness, but ultimately it has its roots in those Eastern religious traditions, even though mindfulness is a secular, it's away from religion. But it's something that I think everyone should make the time to try and get, because it doesn't always click straight away, I think is the point. Yes. I just want to finish up, Andy, and you've been so kind to give us so much of your time, because I know that you're an absolute dynamo. I'm also aware that you're moving away from the one-year no-beer organization now. So can you just give us an overview of what one-year no-beer can offer people who are in that place where they started to think, hang on, maybe this drinking thing, I need to do something about it. And then after that, I'll open the open house to you to tell us what you're doing now and what services you have and offer. Brilliant. All right, yeah, so the one-year no-beer, it's a challenge. That's what I love about it, right? So it's stigma-free. It's like a tough mudder around alcohol. And the reason that's really important, because when you first take a break, you must need something to cling to. So I think the idea of a challenge, even though the name is slightly misleading, because you don't have to do a one-year no-beer challenge, you can do a 28-day challenge or a 90-day challenge or a 365-day challenge. You know, I would always recommend just dipping your tongue into 28-day. In truth, I think you need to go to at least 90 to really start to fill the benefits and have that penny drop moment. I call it the alcohol-free magic. When it kicks in, you go, oh, now I know what that crazy ginger dude's banging on about every day and why he's getting so excited about it and over the woods and smiling. Oh, I get it, I've got my mojo back, my time back. So I think the slightly longer challenges are always better. And then once you get rolling, then maybe you want to extend it. But what's great about it is that it comes with a big community and a touch on that earlier on of people like-minded people like you that will share their successes and their trials and their tribulations and cheer each other on. That is really important because in the real world, those tribes don't really exist that much because most people, for all the reasons we mentioned, are still drinking. So it's nice to have the tribe. It's nice to have the format. You get daily emails from yourself, videos from myself that will guide you through it in a really practical way, the best of sort of behavioral change, science, positive psychology, but also really the practical stuff like the real world stuff from someone that's been through it in the real world. This is important. It's not about like textbook learning. It's like what happens when you go to that wedding or the first night out or the lockdown party or whatever it is for you. So it's incredibly practical. So I'd highly recommend it to everyone. Maybe start with 28 days, but 90 is the key. So if you go to one of younowbeard.com, you can take a challenge there. And it's priced in such a way that I think for investment in yourself, a first investment in yourself, it should get close to that no-brainer bracket. And that's the idea behind it. I think your organization must be responsible for setting the most amount of people off down the half marathon path, isn't it? Yeah, that's what happens. People do it. And then as part of that on day two, I think it is that we challenge you to book a physical challenge. Because it's important to give yourself focus because you're gonna get so much time and energy back. It's like, what are they with myself? Whereas I think if you've got an objective that's in the diary that maybe is towards the end or slightly beyond the end date of your perceived challenge, if that was 90 days, for example, it just gives you that extra motivation. And that's why exactly as you said, we have half marathons and marathons. We've got a world record holding marathon runner dressed as a fisherman, who is one of our members. So that, I mean, again, there's that really like nice fun element to it. And why shouldn't it be fun, right? It's the greatest gift you're ever gonna get given in my opinion. I'm completely biased, I own that. But it's all about momentum. It's all about positivity. It's not about giving anything up, right? Because you're not giving anything up. You're just gaining all of these wonderful advantages. So it's all skewed in that sort of vein of positivity and upbeat and look at all the advantages that you're going to gain throughout this experience. And it works incredibly well. And I'm incredibly proud of it. And you're a great example. Not only does it help the people that actually take the challenge, but I know it inspires many, many more people around the edges that are already finding their own way to be alcohol-free or they're just inspired to take a break because of the podcast or the learning or the lives and all that stuff, right? So that for me, I'm on a mission to try and help as many people as possible reach their full potential by taking a break from alcohol. So that fills my mission. Whether you show up and do it through the system, which obviously gives you all those wonderful benefits or you're just inspired to take a break from the booze. That's the mission that I'm on. One thing we must mention, it also is allowing people in our society to challenge the myths of alcohol. To see that, no, actually, it's not this wonderful elixir that we should consume at every single given opportunity and it's okay not to drink. Oh, absolutely. And it's okay to do it in the full view of everyone else rather than this thing that you've got doing sort of secret and try and pretend you're still drinking when you're not. You can actually go, I'm on a challenge. It gives you a little, tiny little sort of excuse because the truth is we need a bit of an excuse to get started to say, doing a challenge. It's just 28 days, don't worry about it. You'll have your drinking buddy back, but I know the secret and the secret is this. If you get to 28 days and you feel amazing, you'll be like, oh, maybe I'll do 90 days. And if you get to 90 days and you feel amazing and you've got your time and your energy and your oomph and your flying and your relationships and in your career, you're gonna keep going. And then it's too late for those friends who go, oh, where's my drinking buddy? It's like, see you later, sucker. I'm on to bigger and better things and it doesn't involve the booze. And I should just mention, I've talked a lot about addiction because that's my story. One you know beer isn't about this. It's not like you have to be lying in the gutter with a bottle of whiskey in your hand. It's nothing to do with that. You don't even have to be battling addiction. It's just for people that think, do you know what? I might just wanna break from alcohol and I want a bit of support to do it. Exactly, you've hit the nail on the head. And also that you might just wanna challenge or you might want to test yourself because actually you're a bit concerned about where you are with alcohol. And it's a great way to test yourself just to have a little look at what it's like to take a break and just in the right type of environment that's actually going to sort of cheer you on and pick you up and support you through that process. And then it might be a discovery piece for you where you realize, do you know what? Actually, I need some more professional help in that sense, right? So that's an important part of what we do as well. Even though that's not us because we're not in that space. We're not in the addiction space. We're above that and the prevention space is still a brilliant place to come to just to have a look at it and feel and you might go, actually, do you know what? I think I need some extra support around this. And that in itself is incredibly important. And what are you doing now, Andy? I'm sure you must be doing a lot. Yeah, so what I do now really is to try and help, as mentioned, people that are already on their alcohol-free adventure reach their full potential. As I touched on in the podcast is why I'm here is what motivated me. It was the what happens next piece when you've got a bit of momentum and you've got a bit of time and you've got a bit of energy. It's like, oh, where do I go? So I run training courses. I have an online mind and body gym, which I'm incredibly proud of. So people that are already on their alcohol-free adventure come and train with me now. So if you're interested in any of that sort of stuff, if you go to andyrammage.www.andyrammage.com or on the socials at andyrammage official Instagram, Facebook, I'm out there live every day, cheering people on. That's basically why I spend most of my time now is running courses. I've got a course coming up in November. They'd be one in Jan's called the office athlete course, but basically it's designed for people that are already on their alcohol-free adventure and they want to level up. That's what I do now. So www.andyrammage.com, you can find out more information about all that sort of stuff. We'll put links below the video folks and on iTunes and the like. Andy, stay on the line. So I can just thank you offline, off air, sounds like I've got a woman TV studio. So mate, once again, just from me personally, massive, massive thank you. Thanks for all your inspiration. So, so well needed and much needed, especially with what we've all just been through because that's chuck to bloody rotten apple in a barrel, you know, so yeah, massive thank you. Keep doing what you're doing. Friends at home, if your life isn't going the way that you want it to, check out Andy's website. Yeah, let's do it. And I think a lot of people reach that point in life where they're not quite where they hoped they'll be. And this is my approach. We're just warming up. We are just warming up. No matter where you are, whatever age you are, you are just warming up if you get hold of it now. Anyway. To our friends at home, massive love to you all. Please look after yourselves. If you can like and subscribe, wonderful. See you next time. Hello, friend. I hope this finds you well. My name's Chris Thrall. I'm a former Royal Marines commando. And I fought my way back from chronic trauma and addiction to live, work and travel in 80 countries across all seven continents, achieving all of my dreams and goals along the way. Now I pass my simple system on to other people, but I can only help you if you like and subscribe. So please do so because you get one life and if you live it right, one is enough.