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Belle's website: Tired of Thinking About Drinking

Belle's book: Tired of Thinking About Drinking

Peter (00:00:00):
You're listening to the PK experience podcast, where I tap into the minds of today's impact players, impact players or people that are making a difference. They are making the world a better place. And it's my intention to inspire them, to keep going, to get louder, to give them a bigger platform, to share their message, and also to inspire the other impact players who might be listening to this call, develop their own gift more and amplify that to make the world a better place. My name is Peter King. I'm the host of the show. I've got a very special guest, a very special impact player today. Her name is Belle Robertson. Bell is a sober coach. A sober coach is somebody that helps people stop drinking. Belle was somebody who drank too much and ultimately was able to quit. And she's been sober now for many, many years.
Peter (00:00:45):
She shared her journey online and attracted tens of thousands of visitors, much more than she even initially thought was even out there. Um, and she's now helped over 3000 individuals on a one on one basis, stopped drinking, um, what she found out and she, you know, we kind of get into this into the call, but if you look at the spectrum of drinking, you have on one end of course, abstinence people who don't drink at all on the other end, you have full fledged, alcoholics, and there's programs out there for that people, most people are aware of like AA and, uh, some other similar programs. Um, and then a lot of people of course, will show social drinkers. They'll have a drink here and there, but there's likely millions and millions of people who are a little bit deeper in and have a drink on a nearly daily basis.
Peter (00:01:29):
If not a little bit more, they drank a little bit when they wake up, they might drink. If they're a little bit stressed out, they might drink, you know, at the end of the day to kind of wind down. And they know that they're in a little too deep because they're thinking about stopping drinking. And that's really where, uh, bell has made her Mark, because that is the name of her business. Tired of thinking about drinking.com. Um, like I said, she went through that process herself. She realized I'm just done thinking about this. I'm done trying to stop. Um, and you know, these are people that are fully functioning. You know, they may even have great life, their life isn't falling apart. Uh, but where's the support for that, that, you know, that's really where she's found her niche is that there's just not a lot of people that are supporting, um, those people that are in that space. So, uh, I'm going to let bell tell the rest of her story. Like I said, it's a very, very, very good and important conversation. She's got a ton of wisdom to share and more importantly, she has a lot of love to share as well. So with that, why don't we dive into the call here? I am with bell.
Peter (00:02:32):
All right. I'm here, here with Belle Robertson. How are you doing bell? I'm doing well. Thank you. Awesome. Well, I am, uh, uh, I've been thinking about this call for the last few days ever since we set this up and thinking about, you know, uh, the topic that you're going to be sharing today. I think it's a very worthy one. And certainly when we had a conversation the other day, you, in that very little conversation, you opened my eyes up to a very serious and very real problem that probably affects of people worldwide, but very few people will actually talk about it. So, um, it's a pleasure to have you on the show today and welcome. Thank you. Great. Um, so for those that don't know what we're talking about, why don't you share a little bit of a overview of background about who you are and what you do?
Bell (00:03:17):
Sure. I'm a person who drank alcohol, perhaps like lots of people after dinner, wine, weekends, vacations. Um, and I was sort of questioning that my use was trending upwards over a longer period of time. It wasn't a big dramatic thing, but I was sort of feeling like it was moving, not in the right direction. So I thought, okay, well, I'll do one of these challenges and this is seven years ago. And there's something called dry July, which is a fundraiser. And in Australia to raise money for cancer, I didn't actually sign up for the thing, but I heard about dry July and I thought, okay, I'll quit drinking for a month. Cause you know, that'll prove that I don't have a problem. And, um, I got about eight days in before I realized that it was way harder than I thought. Hmm. And that was like a weird wake up call because there's a lot of talk.
Bell (00:04:12):
Like I don't have a problem. I, I have, I personally have university degrees. I run a business, you know, I, I couldn't possibly be an alcoholic. I couldn't possibly be a person relying on alcohol until I tried to quit. And then it was sorta like, Holy shit, this is way harder than I thought it was going to be. And if you're in that group, like I did not have, um, I was not arrested for drinking and driving. I hadn't lost my job. I hadn't lost my marriage. The world sort of knows about AA and the world knows about rehab, but where do you go when you want to quit drinking? When you don't think that you need to go to AA yet. And I didn't know that, that this existed, that there was even support for this. Um, and it's online, which is, you know, new really seven years ago, it was blogs because there wasn't Facebook groups at that time and everybody would open up a word, press blog, and you could write a non honestly, and you could talk about your journey. And I found actual sober blogs, which, you know, if you watch television, all you ever see about overdrinking is car crash, rehab, a relapse relapse car crash, AA. That's all you see on television. Like it pick a show, pick a show like Nashville. If there's an alcoholic character, he goes to AA. He has a car crash. He has a relapse. There's never any story about somebody who quit drinking because they realized that they were relying on a psychologically and that it was trending in not the right direction.
Bell (00:05:50):
I, you know, I was just going to ask you if you're functioning, if your marriage is good, if your job is good and you're having a few drinks here and there, why would you want to stop?
Peter (00:05:58):
So you started to allude to that right there, the psychological dependency of it.
Bell (00:06:01):
Right. I, I think it's that we don't realize to what extent we are psychologically dependent until we actually try to quit. And so there's a fairly large amount of justification going on. Like most people aren't trying to figure out how to drink less. Most people are trying to figure out how much they can drink without repercussions. Like the average person on a Tuesday night is going to say, I can have a second drink, but I can't, I can't have a third one because I'm driving or I can't have a third one because I got to get up in the morning. And so they don't go into the event saying, I'm going to drink. What's the least I can drink, but trying to figure out what's the most and on vacation, uh, then we start drinking in the morning and it's sort of, we sort of like fill the space that's available for alcohol, which is just sort of normal, right?
Bell (00:06:50):
Like nobody really considers it until you're realize that maybe you're not sleeping. Great. And you notice in the nights you drink waking up at three in the morning thinking, Oh, my life is misery. Or you say tomorrow night, I'm only going to have one glass and then it's tomorrow. And then it's two glasses. And I just realized that I couldn't keep a promise to myself about something. That's just seem really basic, right. Have one glass of wine with dinner and then stop. And I didn't know that there were other people who decided to have none in that situation. Like to me, it just seemed like something I was going to continuously wrestle with. I'm just going to wrestle with this idea of how much, when, how, how many is there enough? Should I go back out and get more? Should I skip a night? Should I skip three nights?
Bell (00:07:37):
Can I skip a week? And just, it started to suck up brain space. Again. I was unaware of it until I tried to quit. And then once the boost was removed, I was shocked at how much a vacant space became available in my head. Huh. Which is the name of my site. Right. It's called tired of thinking about drinking. That's the name of the blog and the site. Now it was the thinking about drinking. That was exhausting. Now do most people go through life, have their two glasses of wine and not give it any, any thought? Sure. Are there lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people who are drinking three glasses of wine a night and know that something's up, but they don't know what to do because they don't fit any profile. And where do you go to get support for something when you're, that's not really a problem. And as soon as you say to one of your friends, I think I'm going to quit. They go, I drink more than you. Why do I drink more than you? You know, or whatever.
Peter (00:08:35):
Yeah. There really is that middle ground. That, that there's no real, uh, support.
Bell (00:08:41):
Right? Well, there wasn't, and I didn't know it existed. Now. It turns out that it does exist now, but seven years ago, what existed was reading other people's journeys,
Peter (00:08:51):
Separate blocks.
Bell (00:08:53):
And that's how I got started. So I was writing a sober blog for myself about my experience. I have a background in writing. It turned out to be helpful. I was, could sit down and type out what I was thinking, but because the internet is anonymous, I could also say like the truth without any particular fear of judgment, you know that my mother was going to see it or whatever, but you could, but I could, I could actually say what was going on. And what I didn't know is that anybody else would find that helpful. I was really writing to keep my own head above water. I wasn't trying to save anybody. And people comment, you know, people who were further along than me would say it gets better. And somebody else who was on day one would say, Oh, I wish I was where you are. And there was this little community, again, pre Facebook.
Bell (00:09:45):
And at about eight and a half months, there was somebody reading my blog who was having a hard time repeatedly resetting day one. She was trying to quit, had more serious repercussions was really trying to quit and having a hard time. And I just sent her a private message and said, look, maybe trying to quit drinking forever is too hard. And maybe you should approach it like a trial, like a challenge. Like why don't you just commit to quitting for a hundred days? And then cause then, you know, it relieves the mental burden of I have to quit forever. Yes. And, and if I'm going to quit forever, frankly, I'll start tomorrow. Right. Cause if it's forever, then forever starts later. If I said to you right now, Peter, you never can eat cheese again. Never. You'd be like, Ooh, I'm going to start that next Monday then.
Bell (00:10:33):
Cause I got this Jesus thing. Yeah. I, I said, could you not eat for 30 days? You'd go probably work around it for 30 days. Yeah. Right. And so when I said to this one random anonymous girl, why don't you do this? Why don't you send me an email every day? And just tell me how you're doing well, she then goes and posts it on her blog and says, bell says that I'm going to do a hundred days over challenge. And I'm going to email her. And I'm like, Oh fuck. You're like, no, no, that's not what I said. And then 10 people email and then 20 people email saying, can I do the challenge with you? But people who didn't have blogs, who weren't writers, who were reading and following silently. And I thought it was sort of funny and thought, well maybe one day there'll be a hundred people doing the hundred day sober challenge.
Bell (00:11:21):
And that's seven years ago, I got to my 30 days clearly and kept going. Uh, I'm just checking. As of today, I've just signed up pen pal 3016 of the people I've worked with one-on-one there's group stuff. There's AA, there's counselors, there's therapists. If you actually want one-on-one anonymous support. There's not many places to go. So, um, now I have many other of people who subscribed to the free stuff that I do of which there is plenty, probably 80% of what I do is free. And the 20% of people who pay more than pay for, to support the whole thing. Um, but I, but I'm told over and over again, that being able to email a stranger anonymously when you are a pilot or a psychiatrist or a mom with three kids, makes a huge difference to just have somebody out there. But cheerleader, not to me, of course, when I started I'm like this can't possibly help anybody. Like how could this actually help?
Peter (00:12:29):
And I'm funny.
Bell (00:12:31):
And then of course it does. And I only know that it does because people tell me, and then I get, you know, emails, many, many emails.
Peter (00:12:39):
How many, how many pilots do you have on your, on your list? That's a little nerve wracking to know that pilots are well.
Bell (00:12:46):
Sure. But then so our psychiatrists and show, so our doctors and so our truck drivers and so our, uh, gardeners and so is see unemployed women with mental health issues. And it really doesn't discriminate. It really doesn't. Um,
Peter (00:13:01):
I'm sure it's just the pilots obviously have a big responsibility and care for other people, doctors too. Of course. And I'm sure a handful of other those occupations, but, um, yeah.
Bell (00:13:10):
And a lot of people will feel that their particular profession is stressful, but that's why they drank. And once you listen to sober stuff, podcasts, or hang out in the sober world a bit, you realize that everybody thinks that their situation is the hard one. Yeah. Mine is hard because I'm a lawyer. Mine is hard because I'm a performer. I'm a singer. My is hard because I'm on the road. Mine is hard because I'm single mine hard because my husband drinks, um, mine is hard because I don't have kids. Mine's hard because I do have kids. And it turns out that her head basically makes up reasons to drink. So when someone emails me and says, I don't know if I have a problem. I say, have you tried to quit? It's like, I don't know if I have a problem with dill pickles. I'm like, have you tried to go 30 days with none? It'll make it really clear how much you rely on dill pickles. As soon as you try to have none.
Peter (00:14:00):
You know what? This is sort of bringing up for me in my mind is how similar this is to cell phones.
Bell (00:14:07):
Oh, it's this. But it's, it's the same thing in terms of addictive response. It dings you pick it up, you want it, you get some, but then that feeds the desire for more. Now, imagine that you have something like that or like compulsive hand-washing or like any other behavior that you repeat, even though you really wish you weren't doing it, except that alcohol is also addictive. So it's not just that the behavior reinforces a dopamine loopy thing. It's that it's like consuming cocaine and then telling me you can't moderate. Your cocaine use. Well, no shit it's addictive. And so people often say, Oh, you know, I'm broken or I'm, I must not have very strong willpower. It's like, it's addictive. It's sort of like cigarettes, right? Or most people haven't experienced of having quit smoking. Lots of us smoked at some point. And then didn't lots of people, um, dry, hard drugs at some point in their life.
Bell (00:15:07):
Not me. Thank God. May I please knock some wood right now? Um, most people don't consider giving up drinking unless there's some cataclysmic reason, which is a shame because it's occupying a lot of brain space in lots of people's heads. Like often when I do a talk or I'm on a podcast or somebody hears one of my podcasts, they'll email me and say, I've never heard anybody say this before. I thought I was the only one I thought I was the only one who wasn't falling down, who wasn't sleeping in the gutter, but I know something's up. Yeah.
Peter (00:15:43):
So what, give us, walk us through a little bit of what you take, you know, the steps that you take somebody through to help them. I mean, obviously the first one is we'll see if you even have a problem putting words in your mouth maybe, but can you quit? Can you quit is a pretty big exposure to whether or not you actually have a deep dependency on it or not.
Bell (00:16:02):
Well, it can be also just a slight, it can be just a psychological dependency and not a physical one. And it turns out it's hard to quit no matter where you are on the continuum. I thought that had drinking two bottles of wine a night was harder for someone than drinking two glasses of wine a night. And that's not what I found. I found that the psychological dependency, it me, it's hard all the time. Like it's hard. You'd think that someone who has one drinking, driving arrest would then quit because they've had a consequence. But instead what happens is there's the same rationalization process, which is while I only got caught that one time, because, or I, that was just that one party where I drank too much. I'll just never do that again. And so I had someone in my group who had three DUIs and you think, Jesus, how does that happen?
Bell (00:16:51):
Right. And it happens the same way that you go from two glasses of wine to three that you go from only drinking on weekends to the weekend starts on Wednesday. Right? So the process actually that I don't, I don't, that's interesting that you ask that because I don't think that I do any of that. Pre-screening I write emails and send out audios and do stuff. And people know that I work one on one. And the thing you need to do when you sign up with me is commit to being sober for a hundred days as the minimum. And then we work from there. So it's not like people sign up with me. Well, they signed some do in sign up and do the free stuff and just lurk, right? If somebody actually signs up to do the one on one coaching with me, it's because they want to quit. They already know that. And I like I've said, I probably said this a hundred times. It's not my job to convince you to quit drinking. It's my job to support you. If that's what you want to do.
Peter (00:17:43):
Oh, that's a, that's a, that's a huge distinction because the commitment and responsibility is all on them. It has to be though, right?
Bell (00:17:50):
Yeah. And it's the same thing where I'm, you'll never hear me say, I'm proud of you. It's not about me being proud of you. It's about you being proud of you. It's about you. It's about you figuring out the tools and supports that you need to help you be sober of which there are many and every person is different and you can talk it over and you can get encouragement. And I can say that's a really great thing. Or it's so cool that you asked that. And I can share stories from my pen pals or from my own personal experience. And in the back of my book, like I challenged myself to write 60 sober tools, cyclical, like basically I made it up. I made up a heading called 60 tools that can help you be sober. And then I challenged myself to write 60 all the way from go to bed early, which is a tool like you can go to bed at seven 30 at night.
Bell (00:18:42):
If you're having a craving. Now that won't be enough. It's not the only tool you'll need, but it's one. And I basically made a continuum that goes all the way from go to bed early to inpatient rehab. Now, most people don't want to do inpatient rehab and most people don't want to do a, at least not right away, but maybe you'll start with 10 of the 60 tools. You'll go to bed early. You'll learn about treats and rewards that are not alcohol. You'll learn about countability and not feeling alone. You'll listen to podcasts. You'll check in with your sober accountability person. You might go to meetings, you might take whatever medication your psychiatrist or family doctor has prescribed to you for. I don't know, anxiety or depression or whatever. Um, and then if you reset repeatedly, then we look at those 10 tools and say, okay, what else could you add?
Bell (00:19:37):
And then what else could you add? Now that list for every single person is different, which is why the one on one coaching is particularly helpful, because then it's like, okay, Peter, but you said you were going to email four times a day and it turns out you're only emailing once a day. Do you think that emailing four times a day is something that you would be willing to try? And most people will say, I don't need to do that. And I'll say, if you're not repeatedly relapsing, we will not argue. We'll say whatever you're doing is fine. Right. If you're on day zero, again, we're going to talk about adding some more things. Now, some people of course, a warm up to that and go, yes. Yes, you're right. And then other people say, you know, uh, I think I'll go back to drinking and then email me three weeks later and say, yeah, okay.
Bell (00:20:23):
I tried that didn't work. Come back again. Like I knew I was here for a reason now. Okay. What do you suggest? So, I mean, I have this really large, uh, list of things that you could pick from, but then I, on my site, I have a really large and diverse kind of approach, like short audios and long audios and free emails and paid email, like pen palling and coaching calls and live audio broadcasts and Facebook live and make slur and medium. And you know, so there's stuff like there's content and there'll be someone who likes to read and then there'll be somebody else who likes the one minute audio messages and you put together your own toolbox. That's cool. You're really providing the menu. And then they get to choose. Wow. Right? And I don't use the word empowerment because I think it's a sucky word. Um, but I think that you're driving the car that is your own life. And, um, we spend a lot of time being mad that we have to put gas in our car.
Bell (00:21:31):
Right. They have to maintain it. We get mad that we have to have driver's license, a driver's license, somebody checking. We had, we got mad that we need to have a copilot telling us to switch lanes in the beginning. Like, no, you're too close to that truck. You need to back off. That's how you learn to drive car. And um, and then you still have to put gas in it and you still have to do some small amount of regular maintenance, or it's going to leave you on the side of the road or in the case of drinking, your sober car will drive into oncoming traffic. So a lot of what I talk about has to do with how to get going. I use this sober car metaphor all the time, but like how to get your car going. Because the typical way to do it is to sit in the car with no GPS, no map, no skills, no training.
Bell (00:22:17):
Another person on day one who doesn't know what they're doing. And the two of you sit there and will yourself to start. That's the most common thing, right? I'll get myself an accountability partner. I'll ask my sister. She and I are going to quit together. Okay. We've got two people on day one sitting in a car with no manual, no lessons. And you're on the highway. Now you could start off on a smaller road. Most people don't, they walk right into a pub and say, where's my willpower. Hmm. I'm over here going, I mean, doing an above on day three. Yeah. Well, I can't stay out of pubs forever. You know? Well you could in the first week. No.
Bell (00:23:02):
So, um, I use, well, you can tell, I use metaphors like booze is an elevator that only goes down and you get to choose when you step off, you can wait for repercussions. If you want, it's just harder. And it's already hard to quit now. So why would you wait for it to be harder? I talk about a silver car. I talk about a light house. You know, about a little chick, like your sobriety's like a little chicken that could be easily squished and you must protect it and not let it get squished by oncoming traffic sorts of metaphors. You know, there's other things like when you're making a new habit in the beginning, you don't know what you're doing and it seems hard and confusing and you don't even know what you're looking for. And it's really helpful if there's somebody who's already done it, who can say up ahead, there's a little dip in the road, slow down. Um, and I think that's how we make large change in our life in general. Like lots of people when they want to run a marathon, go to a clinic, go to some kind of group thing. Right. But get group accountability.
Peter (00:24:15):
What would you say are some of the, the benefits, the, the, the light at the end of the tunnel? Um, cause that that's, that can be just as, um, inspiring and motivational for somebody to say, why, you know, why am I, what is, what am I doing all of this for? What are they missing
Bell (00:24:31):
In terms of like carrot and stick? Like you avoid a hangover, but what do you get? Yeah. Yeah. I, I hesitate to tell you the list because when it, when this list gets quoted out of context, people will say, well, those things didn't happen for me in the first six days. Therefore, this whole thing is just bullshit, right? But the list is large, uh, sleep through the night. Like if I could create a pill and we could give it to you and it would, and here are the benefits sleep through the night, spend less dumb money, consume fewer stupid calories, not argue with your spouse at two in the morning about something that is meaningless, that you will not remember tomorrow, stop the meanness and the crying, depending on the gender and the situation, uh, not wake at 3:00 AM. I'm giving you, I'm giving you the list of things again, to avoid.
Bell (00:25:26):
Uh, if you could wake up in the morning, having slept through the night, feeling proud of yourself, uh, what would you pay for that? And so when you say to people, if you could spend less money, consume fewer dumb calories, be proud of yourself, all you gotta do is quit drinking. Lots of people go, yeah, I don't want to do that. I don't care if I'm not proud of myself then too bad. And I'm like, Oh my God, proud of yourself. Do you know what happens when you're proud of yourself? Everything else changes. So, you know, more confidence you can show up for yourself, take advantage of work opportunities that you were hung over or distracted from. Uh, there's an increase in empathy, which is very difficult to convince somebody of in the beginning because you're more sympathetic about your own struggles, which means you're more empathetic about other people.
Bell (00:26:19):
Uh, a reduction in anxiety is a completely non published side effect of quitting drinking. Most people think they drank to help with their anxiety. What you don't know, and it's not printed on the bottle is that if you quit drinking, it helps your anxiety, that the drinking itself makes you feel anxious the same way that drinking makes you feel depressed. It's a depressant. So when I have people email me and say, I've got a chronic anxiety and depression issue, and I've done therapy, I will say, have you done any of that therapy sober? No. Did you tell your therapist that you had a drinking issue when you were doing your marriage counseling, anxiety therapy? No.
Peter (00:27:00):
Now this is, as I mentioned to you in a previous conversation that we had, I mean, this is really an insidious disease because, uh, it's one thing when you're getting DUIs or when you hit rock bottom, it's quite another, when you're just, you've got your head above water, but the water's rising. Yeah.
Bell (00:27:20):
And you know it, and, and you think nobody else knows it, right? Like, yeah. My friends are going to give me shit. If I say I'm quitting drinking. Cause I don't look like I'm drowning. Yeah. It's a slow bleed. Right. But really nowadays in the time of yoga, cleanses vegan Quito, it's a perfect time. Now, compared to seven years ago, to say, I'm doing a challenge, I'm doing a thing. I'm doing a detox thing. I'm doing a 6:00 AM yoga thing that prevents me from drinking. Cause I feel like a bag of shit when I have to hang my head upside down at 6:00 AM in a hot room, I'm training for a running thing. I mean, really you could say anything.
Peter (00:28:00):
It's really interesting that you've noticed that dramatic of a change in even the last seven years.
Bell (00:28:06):
Oh. And you didn't in the last seven months, like since January stuff has changed again now in the press, there's this sober, curious stuff. Right. I don't know if you've seen any of this, but like curious. I haven't heard, Oh, there's a book called sober, curious sender. And there's like bars that don't have alcohol. Um, which is which now exists, which, you know, again, didn't exist however many years ago,
Peter (00:28:29):
What do they, what do they do at non alcoholic bars
Bell (00:28:32):
Socialize and have music and play games and, or have quiz night or whatever. And you have cocktails that just don't have alcohol. Ah, interesting. So, you know, it just creates a, uh, there's also some things where if you go to some of these big, large music festival events, there's tents set up with no boos where there might be, you know, 10 beer tents there now might be a sober cocktail tent. Um, it's certainly a marketing opportunity as well. If you're in the business of taking people's money, then you would find a trend and hop on it like kale or any other green juice, you know, like really. But for lots of us, it's not a fad and it's not a trend. It's a, I feel so much better with it removed. I don't even care how you labeled me before. I don't care. If you labeled me over drinker, problem, drinker, alcoholic, I don't even care.
Bell (00:29:30):
I know I feel better now. And so then I don't really even care what other people think because the improvement in wellbeing is so dramatic. Even when life is hard and think SOC one of my silver pen pals sober 200 days, which is not a super long time and her son dies, she doesn't drink. Hmm. We have all kinds of conversations about processing grief with them without with it, with, and without alcohol, somebody else in my group, you know, who has to put their cat to sleep. There's somebody else who got fired. There's somebody else who relapses repeatedly and can't make a decision about whether or not to switch jobs and everything in between. And people are navigating already complicated lives. And you know, I mean you and I know that the incidence of anxiety and depression is way larger than reported. Nobody talks about it. Imposter syndrome, feeling like you don't fit in feeling fake, feeling like you need to drink to somehow lubricate an awkward situation, social anxiety, all that stuff. The number of people who are using alcohol and know there's something up is huge.
Peter (00:30:49):
One of the biggest insights I had I've had in my own psychological development and going to some of these self-improvement programs and stuff like that was with the whole imposter syndrome thing to realize how, uh, not just normal it is, but it's like it everybody's doing it. That's part of the maturing process. It's like, wait a second. Who am I really? Right. And so you're going to have those in, you're not going to just blip from, you know, this immature, nothing to the perfect idealized version of yourself. There's going to be that transition. And a lot of times we, we put on what we, what we project that we want, but we're not quite there yet. And so yeah, on the inside it's like, ah, I'm full of shit. Like I'm just, I'm just right. But yeah, that's
Bell (00:31:37):
That I watched for on my own site. Like, I'm very clear because it's anonymous because I'm anonymous because all of the things that we're doing together is private. My people create screen names for themselves and I only ever refer to them. I mean, if you were Peter, then you might make up your screen name as you know, uh, Jeffrey, the third. And then we would just call you Jeffrey. The third had changed enough details of my shared a story that no one could identify you. Um, but then you realize that not only is everybody dealing with the same stuff, but we're all hearing virtually the same words in our head, right? Like when you ask somebody why what's going to be the hurdle, when you tell your mother that you're not drinking, and then someone feeds you back that line, and then I share it with the group, I'll get 300 emails saying, I thought I was the only one and that amazing.
Bell (00:32:26):
So when I share my stuff and I do it honestly, and with the sort of vulnerability and the imposter syndrome and the I'm not a perfect human, in fact, I'm just a person who doesn't drink. I'm not perfect in any other way at all. I'm simply a person who doesn't drink period. And I talk about it. Um, the number of people who just feel heard because of that turns out, feeling heard is like a vehicle to help you make change. Yes. Right? Okay. But now you and I can get that on a sort of intellectual level. But imagine that you could actually make large change, like quitting drinking by feeling heard. But to me, that just seems so incredibly impossible and yet, and yet, right. So what does it mean when you feel heard? It means you're not alone. It means you're not nutty. It means that somebody else hears the exact same voice. Someone else who went to university, someone else who has three kids on the autism spectrum, three boys under 11 years old, all autistic. She, she hears the same shit in her head that I do that, that, that the, that the psychiatrist here's imagine you're a psychiatrist. And you have an overdrinking problem. Who can you tell an anonymous person online? Who can you have weekly calls with an anonymous person online?
Bell (00:33:54):
I actually have a woman. Um, I have a woman. Who's an anesthesiologist. I have a man in wheelchair, uh, from a car accident. And sometimes people ask me like, what are the demographics? Like, there is no demographic. Like, what's the demographic on anxiety. What's the demographic on imposter syndrome. It's a psychographic. It's not a demographic. You've got people from 27 to 73, literally. And so the 27 year olds, whenever we get a 27 year old, we're like celebrating like, Oh my God,
Peter (00:34:25):
I wish I had done this when I was 27. Oh my God.
Bell (00:34:28):
I sorta knew something was like, not quite right, but you know, and then the woman who is 73 is like saying, do you think it's too late for me? And I say, you're going to be here for 20 more years. How do you want to spend them proud of yourself available for your grandkids? Do you know that they won't take your call after six o'clock? Do you know why they won't take your call after six o'clock they can't count on you to be sober, right?
Peter (00:34:58):
Yeah. And what a great example of that would be to make such a dramatic shift at that, at that age, in your life and, and finished strong, so to speak well.
Bell (00:35:10):
And I think that for every person who gets sober, there are a hundred people around you who are directly impacted your partner, your kids, but the decisions that your kids make about how they drink and who they date and how they raise their own kids. Like when I was growing up, I didn't know anybody who didn't drink. When I quit drinking at whatever age I was 40 something. I didn't know anybody who didn't drink in some of the cases with my pen pals, their kids will know them, right? Like a woman who's quit drinking after a 40 year bad story. Who's a functioning policemen, police woman who quits drinking a hundred people are impacted. Not, not, not to mention her, like, you know, that waking up, feeling proud of yourself thing. It's Karen anonymous person on the internet actually help you feel like you're not broken. It turns out yes. But you know what? Like, there's, there's other silver coaches too. Most of them though have groups and you know, groups are actually easier than one-on-one. Right. It really is. Um,
Peter (00:36:26):
You bring the, you bring you aluminate the commonalities of the, of the, um, dysfunction. Yes. And like you said, you shared that one story and then hundred people go, Oh, that's the same thoughts in my head. That that group, uh, exposure is so bad.
Bell (00:36:43):
Powerful. And I do that by email, like sending out one email to my mailing list of 22,000 people. And then I get, so it's like curated. You're not getting every random internet person's opinion. You're getting what I share. I share it with my own stuff. But I also share emails from pen pals.
Peter (00:37:00):
Well, and you're seeing the patterns and you're seeing the needs and, and you're, you're the, yeah, that's, that's very cool,
Bell (00:37:06):
Right? Because otherwise what you will have in an open group is anybody saying anything, trolls, people who are repeatedly on day one taking no taking no advice, not asking for advice, asking people for help, but not taking any advice with no accountability. So then you can disappear for three months and nobody's checking on you.
Peter (00:37:27):
Uh, you know, that's really interesting cause I've been in the coaching space for a while and forget sort of the topic that you're helping people with. But anybody that is a leader, that's trying to help people. I mean, I've, I've been in the relationship space and I've been helping men and women be better men and women, and better relate, et cetera. And, and you bring up a really interesting model on how to potentially better help those individuals because you're right. It's so noisy and it's very distracting. Um, but if you become sort of the gatekeeper to curate the content like you were talking about, that's really interesting. I gotta think about that. I don't know if I need to think about that. That's really powerful.
Bell (00:38:05):
But if you think also about podcasts where it's single speaker, like let's imagine that you get up tomorrow and you record 10 audios that are 21 minutes long each, or you talk about something like, um, couples issues to do with finances. Just pick a thing, pick a topic. Like how do you decide what car to buy? And what you're really going to do is give them an example about how to think about it. How to think about it from the other person's point of view, how to accept that you come to the table with money programming. I'm making this up off the top of my head. If you record it and it's one person speaking and you Peter say you, I want you to eat. Okay. I'll pretend to be you. I want you to think about buying your next car and the kinds of decisions that go into that and how easy it is for you to get into an argument with your partner about that.
Bell (00:38:53):
So here's what we're going to do. You're going to think about this and this. And I'm going to tell you a story about that in that, what happens at the end of that is that person feels like you were talking to them, even though it was a broadcaster audio, because interview like we're doing now, which is super fascinating and will elicit conversations that we would never have alone. But when you're listening to it, you're a, you're a bystander. If it's one person speaking, you're participating because I'm talking to you and it's private. It's in your head. It's one, like it's not three people sitting in a room watching a movie. It's you with your headphones on, in the grocery store?
Bell (00:39:33):
I didn't know that. I mean, I'm telling you this, it makes it sound like I figured this out. I didn't, someone told me I recorded audios. They said it. I like your audience because, and I'm like, really? But I don't do them. Like other people do. Most people do interviews and they're like, yeah, I feel like interviews. It's too easy to turn them out. I want to hear you talk to me. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to think about it. Tell me how to reframe it. Repeat it nine times now I also live in Paris so I can go and stand somewhere. Interesting. And talk about what I see or the duck pond.
Peter (00:40:05):
Oh, that's fascinating. Just from an inspirational, uh, contextual thing for you. Is that, is that why you do it or,
Bell (00:40:15):
Uh, it's variety again, these are all accidents. I mean, this is the reflexive process of evolving in front of your group.
Peter (00:40:23):
Yes. But these are, these are intentional accidents. I mean, you're, you're taking action. Putting your neck out there. Sometimes it gets cut off other times. It's
Bell (00:40:31):
But I go entirely based on what someone tells me works for them. I try stuff. You're right. I throw all kinds of spaghetti at the wall, but like for example, um, I was going to record a podcast, but I wasn't at home. I was out on my run. So I pulled out my phone and just started talking into the microphone on my phone. W at the halfway point of my run, I was standing at the duck pond. Okay. So you can hear the ducks in the background and you can hear things. And I narrate the fact that I'm in France and the policemen just run by and all the French policemen are dressed in red and blue spandex and blah, blah, blah. Well, then this becomes like, are you going back to the duck pond? So then I recorded a series of audios where I stood at the duck pond and recorded all the audios. All, all, no video, just audio. Yeah. I would never have known that. That would work until someone told me. And then I started doing Facebook videos while I'm anonymous. My group is anonymous. So I do Facebook live videos where I turn the camera out and video the duck pond while I talk, or I video Metro or the view from my balcony in my apartment. You can still hear me, but there's something to see. Um, what, when I'm listing it like this, it makes it seem like I woke up evolved,
Bell (00:41:49):
Have this conversation with you because it does make it seem like I've figured it out. And I didn't, they told me and I listened. I record podcasts fine. I then started putting little clips, like here's a one minute teaser of the podcast. Somebody said, could you do more one minute messages? Sometimes my attention deficit brain can't process more things. So I did a bunch of what I thought were cheesy. One minute messages where I sounded in a softy voice. And I said, things like being sober as the foundation for all the things you want in your life. And I put music underneath them and they're like fantastically popular and people will press play and listen to 50 in a row. And I'm out here going, no,
Peter (00:42:35):
Listen to me.
Bell (00:42:37):
The topics are all over the place. Oh, that's wild. So the like, how would I know that one minute cheesy messages were going to be meditative and soothing in a way that the longer ones aren't, or depends on your mood or you some days you want one or the other, how would I Must hit the microphone one time in every interview?
Peter (00:42:58):
I, that was the second time.
Bell (00:43:00):
Okay. My gang knows that I do that at least one time. Yeah.
Peter (00:43:06):
Making sure everybody's still awake. Um, that's really, that's really interesting that it's a bit of a tangent. I'd actually like to follow up with you on some of that stuff, maybe, uh, off this topic. Cause I want to make sure that we stay on topic. Um, you talked about reframing, uh, there's an art to reframing. Um, maybe you can give, maybe this would be a good time for you to share a few of the case studies that you've had obviously without revealing names or anything, but just, what are some of the types of issues that people come to you with? What's what does their life look like? How do you help them reframe it? How do you help them? And what does their life look like after you work with them? Maybe you could share a case study or two on that.
Bell (00:43:47):
Sure. Um, you could be a 65 year old man who lost your job from drinking. And you could have watched my stuff for a long time and then decided you were going to sign up with me. And then you email once a day and say, I'm here. And I send out some audios and you listen to them and you send me your feedback. That might be some people, the particular person that I'm thinking about. He actually sent in relatively thoughtful feedback. So then we could have a conversation and he would challenge something that I'd say, he say, boy, I never thought about it like that. Can you explain why? It's like, why you think about it like that? I'd explain it. We'd go on. Then something would happen with a girl. He was dating and we'd have a conversation about that. But it's specific to the person where they are at that time.
Bell (00:44:34):
And the reframing is done on a day by day basis. Like we don't sit down and talk about how you're going to navigate Christmas in July. We navigate whatever's going on right now. How are you going to make sure you get enough sleep? How are you going to make sure that you don't get overwhelmed? Because feeling really overwhelmed as a trigger to drink. Um, if you come to the table and you are a young woman whose child died at two years old and you are trying to quit drinking now, and it's been about a year since your child die, um, I meet you where you are. If you're talking to me about trouble sleeping, we talk about sleeping. And the things that I might reframe would be like, it gets better as you go along, how you feel right now is not how you feel all the way through.
Bell (00:45:23):
And you don't say at one time you say it every time, because it's, it's re it's iterative. It's repetitive. It's incremental. It's cumulative. You don't just hear something. This is like how everybody evolves. You don't just hear, uh, stop eating French fries one time and then stop eating French fries. Right? If it was we'd all. Well, if it was then every self help book would have one page that says stop doing that shit. Yeah. Right, right. It doesn't work like that. And so if you, if you email every day or if you're reading the sober emails that I send out, if you're not, you know, not engaged in the private stuff, like the private one on one stuff. But if you're reading, it's repeated over and over, make sure you get enough sleep. Look at the treats thing. Look at the rewards thing, sober car, put gas in your car maintenance.
Bell (00:46:13):
And then what does each individual person need reframing on my husband's an ass. Okay. So the reframing on that is, it's hard to tell in the beginning, how much of that is you and how much of that is him? He may be a turd, but you probably can't tell until about day 200 for now. It's okay. If you just take care of you and let him be uttered over there. And we'll talk about him later. Now that may never come up again. She may get today 30, 60, 90, and never met your husband again, because whatever it was was like a moment. Right? But if you think about it, it's like when a kid comes running into the room and says, mommy, mommy, where the babies come from, you answered the question. That's in front of you and you don't talk about Christmas.
Bell (00:47:03):
And if they ask the question again, then they need more reframing and more reassurance and more information. And if they go okay, then off they go, right? So what am I reframing? Everything you do, should you be dieting in the beginning? Should you be dating in the beginning? How much maintenance do you need? How often should you email? I mean, it's going to be different for every person based on how they're, there's a lot of worrying about husbands. I'm on day 40, but my husband still drinks. What can I do? Or husbands emailing me saying, I'm getting, you know, I'm getting sober. I'm improving my life. My wife has shows no interest and I have to reframe, you know, personal responsibility. Think how long it took you to make change. Think how long you knew you needed to do something before you did something, afford her the same grace eyes in your own paper.
Bell (00:48:00):
That kind of shit. Um, and that's your addictive voice will distract you and make it all about her because then you can be mad at her and then you can drink at her. What's the point doing this anyway. Right. You know what the drink ad people is. It's like, well, fuck you. If he's going to my ex, it's going to be like that, then fuck him. I'll drink. Yeah. That's cause you're addicted. Voice really is going to look around for reasons to drink, including flat out, making shit up. Right? Like, like if I drink, it will help me with Sheila in accounting. Right. Sheila account that traffic. Oh my God, that traffic Sheila and accounting, I have to drink. It's like, I have to drink. I got to have a drink because like, how else am I going to cope with Sheila in accounting,
Peter (00:48:50):
Fucking Sheila, Sheila, for so many people.
Bell (00:48:55):
But then, you know, if I have one person have a Sheila story, then I share it. Then really I can have hundreds of emails back. And then everybody's like, damn, that's I have a Sheila, I have a Sheila.
Peter (00:49:05):
I have a Sheila. Yeah.
Bell (00:49:07):
You seem slightly inf. Cause I also swear quite a bit, which is a pattern interrupt, but it's also just who I am. And I decided when I was doing this, that I was going to be a hundred percent me. Even if that wasn't, um, pretty, uh, because otherwise I couldn't do it. Like I couldn't do a fake version of this. Um, uh, I floss my train of thought about Sheila and accounting and not pretty and swearing. Oh yeah. I use like derogatory language. Like, uh, Sheila is an anus and you do not drink because of giant. Anuses like you don't. And so when you say it like that, everybody's like, yeah, exactly like that. Okay. Right. You're right. I'm not going to drink because of an anus. Okay. That's a lot. You should see what happens to your site's statistics. When you have a blog post called a, you know, be aware of a giant anus. Can I tell you the kind of porn searches that end up on my site, then be shocked when they find out it's about drinking.
Peter (00:50:04):
Yeah. Talk about a pattern interrupt.
Bell (00:50:09):
Some of that language, um, can make you see your own head with like a different point of view. Right? That's what reframing is, is, is there another way to look at this black and white thinking? You know, she was a witch. She was fantastic. Is there anything in granny gray? Is there any possibility that 5% of this is you? And not because, I mean, of course it's more than 5%, but most people won't admit to that. So you start off with five and say, okay, Peter, what's the 5% that's you in, in this argument with your mother, with your wife, about the car, what is your 5% on that? And that actually can change. I mean, you know this from relationship stuff, one person owns 5% of their shit. Everything changes, everything changes. Yep. I have a woman in my group whose husband has threatened to leave as she can't solve her overdrinking issue. He's had enough of watching her go to a party and become drunk to the point where he has to help her home. It's not the, not the kind of life he wants to have. He gets to make that choice. She's on the phone to me saying, what do I tell him? And you say, you're right. It's hard. It's even gets hard. It must be confusing to you, honey. It's confusing to be me.
Bell (00:51:25):
I know that I say, I'm going to quit. And then I relapsed again. I know that must seem like I don't care or I'm not trying, like you own it. And I'm meeting with bell and I'm talking on the phone and I'm going to, in her case, she's going to meetings and she's taking medication. Like I'm trying all the things. I understand that you feel nervous that I'm going to relapse again. Like she'll, you know, she'll email me and say, he's he's, he's watching me. It's like, yeah, he's afraid for you. He loves you. Oh my God. He loves you. He wants you to be well, Oh my God, you should drink at him. What a bastard. And if you can reframe it like that, then people can sort of see it a little bit from the other person's point of view and realize that all she has to do stay sober.
Bell (00:52:14):
This will all stop. All of it. It'll all just become. Remember that time back then when you're 20 years from now, the regret and the shame will be better. Really? The further away you get from whatever the event is, the better I have a woman in my group, you know, who, who woke up in another city and you think those stories don't happen except that she's a young person. And she, you know, she sort of lives in fear that she's going to trip fall and wake up in another city. And the reframing that I would do with her would be every day away from day one is one day closer to a new version of you over here. And one day further away from the old version of you back there. And there's no reason to think you're going back there unless you drank again. And how many times might you say that a daily? Sometimes it depends on the person.
Peter (00:53:13):
Do you, do you get into earlier in the call, you talked about an actual physical addiction, which I get, but is there, is there not always an underlying sock, psychological void that any addiction is seeking to fill? Yeah. Isn't, isn't the drinking, the symptom of the root cause of the psychological void
Bell (00:53:37):
Sort of, except that it's addictive substance. True. So like, why am I addicted to cocaine? Does it, is it because I have a hole in my soul? Or is it because cocaine is addictive? Right. Okay. So the problem is that there's a lot of shaming of the person who has the addiction with an ad and it's not shaming like bad. You bad you, but it's like, Oh, there must've been trauma. There must've been abuse. There must've been some underlying large deficit, um, which is simply shaming language. Without it being intent, it's not intentional, but that's the way it feels. It makes sense. One of the first things that I say to people is you're not broken. You remove the booze and most of this will stop. Like the peeing, your pants that'll stop. Right? There's the buying all the nice groceries, but then starting to drink at dinner times that you don't actually make the meal, that'll stop. Um, small, like small things, embarrassing yourself at a child party event telling, I mean, I have a story of like disclosing intimate marriage details in front of 20 people because I'd had three drinks and it seemed hilarious. Uh, it's not funny. And it's funny in the retelling like hall highs and that embarrassing, but like, it's not funny. Yeah. Well, I never run the risk of doing that again. If I don't have three glasses of wine.
Bell (00:55:04):
Um, does that answer your question?
Peter (00:55:08):
It does. I, I love, I love the starting point of you're not broken well,
Bell (00:55:13):
Yeah. So if you ask me then what are the things that we, what are the commonalities that we do have, if it's not childhood trauma, for example, which is really a big thing in the addiction world is the, the trauma thing. Sure. Um, which isn't to say that I don't have pen pals or subscribers or have talked to people who have trauma. I do, but so do lots of people in the world. It's really quite common, you know, that we know from the me too. And we know from the, uh, aggression and violence on the Metro, in the train and the whatever, like we know that people have shitty things happen from what I can see, somebody who might be inclined to drink more than they want to would be a person who is sensitive in the, in the clinical sense, like tags, that you can hear something a mile away can't stand the tap, dripping need the right pillow.
Bell (00:56:12):
Um, that kind of there's this like a heightened little, literally a heightened central nervous system sensitivity. Um, that seems to be a pretty common thing. So, okay. If you're an extra person, feelings easily hurt, cry at a dog food commercial, um, can tell in a room if there's some kind of bad Jew, bad vibe and you know, and pathic. So you pick up the like, I'm a person who doesn't watch the news. I'm a full functioning adult with three university degrees. I don't watch the news because it winds me up. Okay. So I live my life in a certain amount of ignorance because it protects the inside of my head. I know what I need to know. And then I don't watch video ever, even if there's an event, I read the text, but I don't watch the video. Cause it just gets in my head and it makes me feel crummy.
Bell (00:57:03):
Okay. So if you're a sensitive person, fine ticklish, afraid of the dentist, all those sorts of things, the sight of blood, whatever. Um, if you take that and then you add in some kind of crappy parenting and it doesn't have to be overt abuse, it can just be not getting your needs met. So you're an extra sensitive choice parents, right? Exactly. But if you're an extra sensitive person and your needs are being met, then you think it's because you're a disaster, a fuck up not good enough. 12 year old can identify that their parents have their own bloody flaws and can't see past the end of their own nose. They don't know that when you're, you don't know that when you're 12, now your parents
Speaker 4 (00:57:44):
It's supposed to be perfect.
Bell (00:57:46):
We thought that you didn't have kids until you had your shit sorted out.
Speaker 4 (00:57:53):
I know. I know.
Bell (00:57:54):
And so then if you also then don't have good self soothing tools. Now think about it. How many of us grow up with a parent who comes home from work and says, had a really long day at work. I'm going to go for a run to decompress my head and then come back and work. We'll have dinner. Nobody. How many people come home from, uh, the night shift and say, I'm going to have a bath. That's one of the ways that I can like shut things down for me. I'm going to have a hot chocolate. I'm going to get the blanket to sit on the, on the couch, self soothing. Well, we're not taught it like meditation or yoga or, or literally a blanket with a hot chocolate on the coach. Watching bad television can be self soothing. Particularly if you do it in a dark room.
Bell (00:58:38):
And then all of the periphery fades out. You've had that experience where you can get right into the TV. And then you're like communing with the television. It shuts out the world. Well, we need ways to shut out the world. We need ways to go to bed at seven 30 at night, fully clothed. We need ways to decompress. It turns out you can learn them. But if you're a sensitive, you have a sensitive head, you have some kind of crappy parenting. Again, like you said, just about everybody. You don't have great self-soothe self-soothing skills, which is most people. And you're consuming a product that is addictive. What do you think happens? What happens is you never learn any other tools on how to feel better because you just have a glass of wine. You don't even learn that a VA juice at 6:00 PM would help because the blood sugar is wacky and you need something you're used to having a drink at six o'clock being told that you can have a VA juice. Six o'clock is like a light bulb going on because the cue and reward like the, I have the feeling. I need the thing, the distance between them get so short that we go right from any emotion to alcohol, happy celebration, wedding, funeral, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, alcohol. Oh, that's interesting.
Bell (01:00:07):
I can tell. You're very thought. You're very thoughtful about this though. You're not just like asking questions. You're actually like processing.
Peter (01:00:14):
Yeah, I am processing. It's not, I mean, I'm, I've not been, as I mentioned to you earlier on another call that, you know, I, I grew up in a conservative Christian household. We didn't drink. Um, most of we were at a biblical schools, all of my friends and their families for the most part didn't drink. And that, you know, obviously you hit a high school and you're gonna, kids are gonna start to do what they want to do and college and whatnot. So obviously friends had started to drink them. But, um, there was never, that wasn't necessarily my world. So you're, you're introducing some things that I, that is getting me to think a little bit more and pontificating about what that would be like to all, like you just said, always turning the alcohol on any emotion, you know?
Bell (01:01:00):
Well, and my joke is happy, sad, mad, glad Tuesday, the reason. Great. Right? Happy, sad, mad. Glad Sheila. I should put Sheila in there too. Happy you look Tuesday, Sheila and Tuesday. Great. Oh my God. It's Tuesday. As soon as I hear somebody, like if I meet somebody and they say, Oh, you don't drink. Oh, I didn't mow. Wow. Was that hard? Yeah. I try not to drink on Mondays. She says so. So what do I hear then? But what do I hear? She's trying to manage her content. She's trying to manage her consumption. Right? It's on her mind. She's trying to skip a day. She's trying to skip a day a week. What she may not realize is that it's easier to have none than to do that. And most people don't even know don't have it. Where would you ever have heard that before? Where would you hear it's? Because I feel that moderation means in my head that I will fail that and being sober. They're not the same. You fail at moderating and addictive substance. Yeah, no shit.
Peter (01:02:04):
Yeah. That makes that's a really good point. So it was a full sobriety might actually be the easier path.
Bell (01:02:09):
It is actually way easier. And you can't convince people of that. So you must go in the side door with trial, must go in with a trial because who's to do anything forever. Who's going,
Peter (01:02:21):
That's another really, uh, intelligent, um, approach that I want to give you kudos for it. Cause I there's so many people who have gone through their own struggles, come out on the other side, have found the answers and then they want to go and shout at the world with, you know, they're at Z, everybody else's a day and they just want to say jump to Z, jump to Z. And it's like, I'm at a, I I think I need to go to B. So yeah,
Bell (01:02:47):
It's funny that you say that because in fact, my original training in an earlier life when I was 20 was, um, special education to integrate kids into the regular classroom who had difficulty reading. And you had to learn how to break down large tasks into teachable bits. And you had to be able to then start with taking somebody from zero to one, not taking somebody from nine to 10. And I feel like my whole life, I have focused a lot on the zero to one because oftentimes once you get going, then it's perpetuating. You have momentum, you feel better. It's easier to keep going. I do stuff for people who are on day 200 or 2000. But most of my focus is, is, is the very beginning part because that's where the most change happens. Right? Yes. There's lots of people in this self-improvement world who only want to work with Olympic athletes. I want to work with the person who's afraid to stand on the treadmill. Right. Because once you get through that resistance shit changes.
Peter (01:03:58):
Ah, that's where the, yeah. That that's perhaps the biggest transformation.
Bell (01:04:02):
Yeah. Right, right. And like you said, there's lots of, I only work with the elite, blah, blah. I only work with the top 1% and I'm like, yeah, I wasn't the top 1%. Like I'm a girl from a low income family. There was a period of time where we didn't have a telephone. My family didn't have a car. Um, we lived in co-op housing. They're like, I know what it's like to not be able to buy liquid tide and peanut butter the same week because he had to decide which one you could afford. Um, quitting drinking isn't for the fancy people. And it's not only for people who want to raise their hand and say, my name is Belle. And I'm an alcoholic, which is the only other thing that anybody really knows about. Right? Like if somebody came to you tomorrow and said, I've been worried about what I'm drinking, what would you say? You would say try having less, which is moderation or talk to your doctor or go to AA. That's that would be most people.
Peter (01:05:08):
Yep. Right? Yeah. There's no hasn't been any way, at least that middle ground. Right? Tired of the West. What is it again? Tired of thinking.
Bell (01:05:18):
That's right. Yeah. Right now, if you're a good Canadian, which I am then though that's the lyrics to a song by the tragically hip. There's actually a song called hard to think melts songs called Eldorado. But those are the lyrics from the song. If you're Canadian, that's an in joke. If you're not, then you think I'm a genius and that's practically,
Peter (01:05:34):
Can you, can you be a good Canadian that doesn't live in Canada?
Bell (01:05:38):
Oh yeah. 10 year. But I married a French Canadian and I live in France and so we speak French together, but in France, so we have the wrong accent. We have the Canadian version of the facts. Yeah. Yes. But yes. But no,
Peter (01:05:52):
Yes. This is fascinating. Yeah. I want to, I want to, I was just trying to think of like, how can we tie this up in a, in a nice little bow or at least, uh, the thought that was coming to me was, is there something for, for those that are listening to this right now who might be having that light bulb moment right now? Like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. I'm in that space of that middle ground. Could you speak directly to them and then maybe offer some words of wisdom and or what they can do next. Yeah.
Bell (01:06:25):
Um, I don't need to convince you that, uh, overdrinking is a bad idea and I don't need to tell you that moderation doesn't work cause you've tried it. And what you may not know is that there's like thousands of us out here doing this sober thing. Um, but that you alone in your head, the voice that says drink now is too loud. And that's why we need to involve other people. And I don't mean like, I don't mean like your neighbor and I don't mean like your drinking sister. I mean, other people who've done it. Um, I think that most meaningful change in life is made in relationship with other people. And I think that if we're alone in our head with that voice that says drink, now it will also then say things like you're weak because you can't quit by yourself. I got myself into this.
Bell (01:07:15):
Why can't I get myself out of this now, Peter, this is the time where I will sometimes channel what I hear people say. And then when I say it out loud to somebody they're like, yes, yes, that's me. That's exactly. You've tried drinking water as every second drink. You've tried the fake beer. You've tried skipping Mondays. Have you tried a period of time with none? Would you be willing to consider the fact that it might actually be easier and would feel better? Nobody quits forever. In fact, you only ever quit for a day. That's the whole AA thing. One day at a time, um, having a goal makes it seem like there's an end point. It makes it easier to start. And if you have some accountability or support or advice from somebody who's done it, uh, all the better, and then you're not alone in your head with it. Cause I think that that's the part where people get stuck. I should be, I got myself into this. I should be able to get myself out of it. And I wonder if there's resources available for me that are free and anonymous or paid and anonymous or where I do show my face in a room or where I do tell somebody, right. Do ask somebody who I know, quit drinking and say to them, how did you do it?
Bell (01:08:33):
Cause there's like wax of us out here. And, uh, it's better in a way that you can't actually imagine even when the rest of your life is shitty, uh, feeling proud of yourself is worth doing period. End sentence.
Peter (01:08:51):
Love that. Where, where can somebody go to find out, to get in touch with you and find out more about what you're up to
Bell (01:08:57):
Very creatively named website. It's called tired of thinking about drinking.com.
Peter (01:09:03):
I love as a Canadian that you have about in.
Bell (01:09:06):
I must try to thinking about drinking. Yeah, I know.
Peter (01:09:09):
Yes. Um, bell, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for your time today and sharing your compassion and your empathy with, uh, with this very real issue and, uh, enlightening people to a better version of themselves. I think that's a phenomenal and frankly, that's really the entire intent of this podcast is to bring people on who have a expertise and helping people tap into their higher versions of themselves for greater impact. So thank you.
Bell (01:09:42):
Very welcome. Happy to be here.
Peter (01:09:44):
Awesome. All right. Take care. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye.