6 Things I Learned From Not Drinking For 1 Year

Sam Parr

11 years ago this month, I gave up alcohol. In today's episode, I want to share some of the things that I've learned along the way. So, the reason I'm doing this is that at my 1-year anniversary of giving up drinking, I wrote a blog post. You can Google it; it's called "6 Things I Learned from Not Drinking for a Year." Today, I thought I would recap that blog post but also share some of the things that I didn't add to it, which have kind of come true in the last 10 years. I'm sharing this here on my first million because I think a lot of people would enjoy it. But also, this isn't just about giving up alcohol. It doesn't matter if you're giving up drinking, want to give up drinking, or just want to create a new habit. I have found that these lessons can apply to anyone trying to make a major life change. So, lesson number 1: **figure out your why and go all in on that.** Let me explain. I started drinking in my late teens with just my friends, just like most people when they start. But what I noticed was that it dulled my anxiety a ton. I am a pretty anxious person; I don't know if you could tell if you listen to this podcast, but I have fairly high anxiety. I noticed that when I started drinking, my anxiety just kind of went away. As I got more and more into drinking, I was like, "This feels awesome! I don't feel anxious; I'm going to keep doing it." So, it was very much self-medication. By the time I was about 21, I was super into alcohol.

Sam Parr

Where probably ages 22 to 23, I was intoxicated basically 24 hours a day. I was drunk 24 hours a day. The first thing in the morning, you start, you go all day, and then you wake up a little drunk or a little hungover, and you just keep going. I realized one night I was blowing it. I always felt I was kind of special; I felt like I had this fire in me that I could do something interesting, but I was completely blowing it. I wanted to feel life because I didn't really feel a lot of emotions during that time. They were hidden. So my reason was I wanted to feel life and I wanted to not ruin my potential. Funerals, weddings, celebrations, meeting someone you like, breaking up with that person... I think I, and many other people, would drink because for some reason we didn't want to face reality. Whether it was trauma you had or I'm not sure why other people experience it, but you want to cover it up. I'm not against alcohol and drugs for other people, but for me, it basically just masked how I felt, and I hated that. Then I realized that when I got sober, facing challenging situations felt like this massive adrenaline rush. I felt so good about facing things that I was previously nervous about. It took about six months after getting sober, but in month six, seven, and eight, I noticed that I would face these challenging situations. For example, I was 23 or 24 when I quit, and like every single 23 or 24-year-old guy, meeting girls was the number one focus in my life. At first, I was super nervous to go up and talk to a girl sober, but then I did it one time, and I felt, "Oh my God, that was a rush! I gotta feel that again!" I noticed that it happened with business and so many other facets of my life. I got to feel this extreme emotion that for a lot of sober people, it's probably just how they feel, but it felt awesome. I felt like I was alive again. I actually loved confrontation; I loved nervous feelings because it felt like a rush to experience some of those things. It was important to lean into that. I had to sit down for a minute and figure out why I was doing this. I always try to remind myself of that. I think that's the case for any goal that you try to achieve when you change your life: you have to constantly remind yourself why you are actually doing this. **Lesson number two: Tell your friends.** I originally tried giving up booze because I was in college, and I was like, "This is a problem. This is just a huge issue that I have." I was basically living by myself my senior year of college, and starting my sophomore year, it was like a full-blown issue. I went two years like that, living by myself so no one would know that I was screwed up. I also had a hot dog stand, which was my business. The reason I had that business was that you could own a hot dog stand, sell hot dogs from 11 to 3, and be intoxicated. Most people wouldn't know because they just think you're acting goofy. So, I basically didn't tell anyone. The first time I got sober, I just went cold turkey and I got super sick. A lot of people don't talk about this, but with alcohol, I'm pretty sure there are only two drugs you can die from if you try to quit on your own: alcohol and opioids. I got really sick about five days into giving up booze. I went to my college doctor, and they measured my blood pressure. They said, "Man, your blood pressure is through the roof! What the hell is going on?" I had to explain to them what the issue was, and that was the first time I ever vocalized it. We had to go to the hospital that day, and I had to tell the hospital that I had an issue. It was really embarrassing, and I felt horrible about vocalizing it. I remember I was practically in tears, thinking, "Oh man, I can't believe I just said that out loud." But it definitely felt better. Once I got out of the hospital, I still didn't mention it to anyone. Eventually, after a few months, I was going to graduate college and I moved to San Francisco to try to make it in the internet world. I relapsed because when I got out to San Francisco, I wanted to meet new friends. I wanted to impress these guys I moved in with, even though I doubt they were impressed by drinking. I somehow felt I needed to impress them, so I said, "Yeah, let's go party! Let's go do this!" Then we went out, and I got pressured, and I caved in. I ended up drinking again. It took about another year of kind of going crazy, and I eventually went to a homeless clinic in San Francisco. It was called the San Francisco South of Market Mental Clinic, I think. It was for homeless people. At the time, I had just left my job to start the hustle, and I didn't have any income, so I technically qualified to go to this homeless clinic. In a weird way, I felt like, "I'm basically a bum; I deserve to be here. I'm ruining everything; I deserve to be with these other addicts." I met this doctor, her name's Jocelyn Porques. I saw her up until recently. She gave me this advice: "You should tell your friends, tell your roommates that you're having an issue." I was so freaking afraid to do that. I kind of worked up the courage with her encouragement, and I eventually told my roommates, "Hey guys, I've got a drinking issue. You can live your life the way you want to live your life, and I'm not going to judge you. I'm totally fine with you guys doing what you want to do, but from this point on..."

Sam Parr

On I'm sober and I'm not gonna drink alcohol, and I would love it if you could encourage me. I felt like the biggest weight was lifted off my shoulders. I noticed that when I felt that weight, it would go away. It became so much easier. So, I had no problem after that telling a bunch of other friends. A few of my friends at the time kind of bailed on me, and I was kind of bummed for a minute. Then I was like, you know what? If they're willing to bail on me over this, then **forget them**. I don't want to be friends with those guys anyway. It felt amazing. It felt so good to be able to talk about this with people. I've talked to a bunch of other people who have struggled with this, and a common feature that people have when they're trying to break any type of addiction or habit is that they don't talk about it with others because they're embarrassed. I have found that talking about it makes me not embarrassed because a lot of other people struggle with this stuff. It humanizes someone. I know that a lot of people listen to me and might look up to me. It's cool to help them, but I mostly do it for me. It's a selfish reason why I talk about it because it makes me feel better and it makes me feel like it's no big deal. It kind of normalizes it. In my opinion, if you're trying to change a habit, whether it's addiction or trying to start a business, I think that you should tell people. The reason you should tell people is because of lesson number 3, which is that I think it's important to recreate your identity. Robert Greene is one of my favorite authors. He's got this awesome book called **The 48 Laws of Power**. I remember reading it when I was trying to get sober. I think it's like chapter 25, and he's got this chapter about recreating your identity. He wrote the book in terms of how to gain power, which you could argue is or is not good, but it doesn't matter. The lesson, though, was awesome for me. He gave examples of celebrities. For example, Lady Gaga was this fairly normal woman when she was about 18 years old. Then she thought, "You know, I'm kind of quirky. I'm gonna lean into this weird thing with my identity. I'm gonna make my whole brand about it." She became that person, and that is like the Lady Gaga character. I found that to be very empowering. So, I started changing my language. Instead of saying, "I'm gonna get sober" or "I'm gonna try and be sober" or "I'm gonna try not to drink," I said, "I am sober. I am an alcoholic." I found that labeling to be powerful. I think a lot of people don't like to label themselves. Labels can be really bad for you if you say, "I am depressed" or "I am weak" or whatever it is. So, I just changed the label that I gave myself, and I found that that kind of was like the seed for recreating an identity. My identity before getting sober was like, "I've got a strong tolerance," or "I can be the life of the party," or "I just don't give a shit. I'm down for whatever." These stupid labels that I gave myself, I was still labeling myself. Instead, I decided I'm gonna recreate my identity, and I'm gonna give myself the label of "I am sober." I have other examples of doing this. For example, after giving up drinking, I totally got addicted to sugar, and I got pretty fat. About 2 or 3 years ago, I told Sean, "I'm now a fitness influencer." If you go to my Instagram, you'll see all these old posts where I was kind of being silly about it, but I was serious. I said, "I am a fit person now. I am an athlete." I got super fit because I started working at it, but I labeled myself. Labeling myself as an athlete or as someone who works out every day, I didn't want to ruin that label. So, I exercised every single day. I think labeling yourself as a good person, a loyal person, a business builder, or a fitness freak is incredibly important because it ensures that you recreate your identity. I like to tell people that, and to this day, I still do that with a bunch of things. For example, if I meet someone new, I'm not gonna be like, "Yeah, I'm an alcoholic. I've got issues." But if they offer me a beverage or something, a beer, I just say, "No, I don't drink because I like it too much." They usually get the message. I do little subtle things like that where it kind of puts my foot down: I do not drink alcohol. I felt this load lighten from my shoulders to put it out there, but it put pressure on me to never break that because I didn't want to disappoint others, and I didn't want to disappoint myself. I like recreating my identity, and I like using labels. I think it's really important. So, whether you want to start a business—this is a business channel, and we'll talk about business—if you're working somewhere, it's like, "Oh, I'm only working here temporarily, but I'm actually building a company right now because I'm an entrepreneur." I like labels. I think labels are incredibly effective. Alright, guys, really quick. Back when I was running **The Hustle**, we had this premium newsletter called **Trends**. The way it worked was we hired a ton of analysts, and we created this sort of playbook for researching different companies, ideas, and emerging trends to help you make money and build businesses. Well, HubSpot did something kind of cool. They took this playbook that we developed and gave to our analysts, and they turned it into an actionable guide and a resource that anyone can download. It breaks down all the different methods that we use for spotting upcoming trends and different companies that are gonna explode and grow really quickly. It's pretty awesome that they took this internal document that we have for teaching our analysts how to do this into a tool and are giving it away for free that anyone can download. So, if you want to stay ahead of the game and find cool business ideas or different niches that most people have no idea exist, this is the ultimate guide. If you want to check it out, you can see the link down below in the description. Now, back to the show. Lesson number 4: I'm not trying to be perfect; I'm just trying to be mostly good. I think that is true for many things. Let me give you an example. I read so many books when I was trying to get sober. I talked about **The 48 Laws of Power**; that was a great one. **Mastery** by Robert Greene was another good one. Then the third one was **The Power of Habit**. The takeaway for that book for me was that a habit doesn't go away; it just gets transferred. What that means is that when you want to change a habit, it's important to look at your loop. Usually, there's some type of stimulus that makes you want to do something, and then you react to it. You typically do that over and over again, and that's how a habit is created. When I was giving up booze, I had to look at what my behavior was, and I had to break the pattern. The pattern wasn't necessarily going to go away; it was just gonna get transferred to something new. When I transferred my habit to something new, I was under doctor supervision for this. I told the doctor, "Man, I'm trying to not drink, and I'm on day 3. I am craving sugar so much." When you drink like I did—like 30 beers a day—you crave carbs constantly because that's a big part of alcohol. The doctor was like, "Just go and eat M&M's. Just eat M&M's all day. Who cares? You can figure that out at a later date, but right now, the goal is not to be perfect and live a perfect life. It's just to be better than you were." I thought that was so relieving because I thought I had to be perfect. I was like, "No, I'm making this massive life change. I can't screw anything up." The doctor said, "No, just improve this one thing and give in to the sugar. Then, at a later date, when you're confident with that, and the alcohol thing is away and you're not craving it as much, we'll address the sugar thing another time." So, I did. I ate tons of M&M's. That was my candy for a long time—peanut M&M's. I loved non-alcoholic beer. I drank so much O'Doul's. I would drink like 15 to 20 O'Doul's a day because I noticed when I craved beer, I just went and got an O'Doul's. That's a non-alcoholic beer. If you don't live in America, it doesn't taste very good, but it was an awesome replacement. I got pretty fat because of that, but I was okay. It was better to be fat and not on alcohol than whatever I was before—drinking as much as I did. I transferred that habit from non-alcoholic beer and sugar. I've mostly successfully transferred it to diet soda and carbonated drinks. I drink a ton of carbonated water all day, and I love diet soda. You could say that's not good for you, but that's okay. I'm not trying to be perfect; I'm just trying to be mostly good. Now, lesson number 5: being sober attracts more people. Like I said before, I was 23, 24, 25 when I went through this journey. I was single at the time, and what does every single guy care about? Meeting girls or meeting whatever you're into—basically meeting someone. My number one fear, I remember this when I was trying to get sober, was what girls would think about me. I didn't want them to think I was like a freak. At the time, I was like, "What do they think? Are they gonna think that I'm like religious?" What have they done wrong being religious? But I ain't. I was like, "Are they gonna be turned off? Are they not gonna be into me because I'm gonna be boring?" I remember my first sober date. I was scared shitless. I was so afraid, and I decided to just tell her when something came up. I don't remember how it came up, but I think it was because I didn't order a drink, and she ordered a drink. She said, "Oh, you don't drink?" I was like, "No, I'm basically an alcoholic, and it's been like 6 months since I drank." I remember she leaned in; she put her elbow on the table and leaned in. I was like, "Bingo! She's interested!" What the hell? I don't think you should do something like this for other people, but at the time, I was like, "I'll take any advantage that I can get." The fact that I was afraid to meet women and girls because I was an alcoholic made her maybe more interested in me. I was like, "I'll take a leg up anywhere I can get it." So, I leaned into that, and I noticed that women liked me more—at least the right type of woman, the type of woman I wanted to attract. They liked me more because of that. I've been married now for a long time, so meeting girls in that way isn't actually something I care about anymore. But men were attracted to me more too because I had this newfound confidence. It felt as if I was walking around all day, and I remember I used to think I had a string attached to my back, and I would try to pull it up. I would try to walk perfectly straight because I was like, "Wow, this whole drinking thing is changing my confidence." I'm gonna lean into other things that create a real sense of confidence. I started changing my posture, and it was awesome. What happened was that created this cycle of confidence where I was like, "Oh, I could do this without beer. I could meet a girl. I can go and start a business. I could do all these things." It created this crazy cycle of confidence that kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It was the best feeling on earth. Lesson number 6: finding inspiration is 100% worth it and helpful, and it's okay to be corny. I remember when I was 24, I met this guy named Joe Garvey. Joe Garvey actually had an interesting business. It was called **CLASH**; it stood for the California League of Scavenger Hunts or something like that. When I was trying to start my business, I didn't have any income coming in. I met Joe somehow through a friend of a friend, and he was like, "Man, I host these scavenger hunts for companies. They pay me $10,000, and I do a scavenger hunt all over the city where you gotta go all over the city and find certain things." It was a blast. He would let me work some of the scavenger hunts, and he would pay me like $200 or something. It was a big deal. At the end of a scavenger hunt, you end at a bar, and you drink. He would be there being the life of the party. He was a big tall guy, and he was in the center, getting everyone to rile up and do all these team-building stuff. But it always involved alcohol. I remember after working with him, he told me—I don't remember how—but I was like, "Joe, you don't drink?" He said, "Oh no, I had a problem. I don't drink anymore. I'm sober." I was like, "You can do that while being the life of the party? That's insane to me! How do you do that?" He had a ton of friends, and women loved him. I was like, "You're the man! You're my hero! I can't believe you just admitted that you had a drinking problem, and yet you're still like the man. People still like you." I got so much inspiration from that, and it made me feel so good. So, I started reading all these inspirational books—like the Tony Robbins of the world—all that stuff. I read it like crazy. I even had this jar where every day that I didn't drink, I would put a penny in. Then it turned into where I put 3 pennies in if I didn't drink, if I exercised, and if I ate well. My goal was to fill this jar all the way up. I look back at that, and I'm like, "Yeah, that was maybe a little corny, but it helped so much." Leaning into some of these cheesy things is really powerful. I know a bunch of powerful people—billionaires—who sometimes many other people will look up to. A lot of them do this corny stuff because, and I still do it by the way, we do it because inspiration is awesome. I was already a motivated person. I don't think you can make someone who's unmotivated motivated, but I think you can inspire them. Inspiration is just having something to reach towards or reading something or consuming some type of content that helps.

Sam Parr

Your car is in the right direction. I always viewed myself as this fast car whose back tires were lifted in the air. I had my foot on the gas and I was just flooring it, but I wouldn't go anywhere. That was my motivation. I was already a motivated person; my wheels were moving quickly, but I had to let the tires touch the ground and be pointed in the right direction. That's what I use inspirational stuff for. I like a lot of these cheesy movies where it's a guy doing something totally unrealistic, but it makes me feel good. I also enjoy reading Tony Robbins' books and a lot of these books that I will definitely make fun of now, which by the way, I still read. They made me feel so much better and gave me inspiration. I think it's important to lean into that, whether you're starting a business or whatever you're doing. Because, dude, it's scary! Giving up alcohol, starting a business, meeting a girl, trying to approach a woman you like, moving to a new place—it's all scary. You need every advantage you can get to get over that hump and make these things a reality. So, lean into some of that stuff. There's a lot of really good inspirational content out there. Sometimes it's my first million podcast, but I think it's cool to consume a lot of that information because it rubs off on you. You need any advantage you can get to get ahead and accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish. It's still a little uncomfortable for me to talk about some of this stuff, but I do it because it definitely makes me feel better. I acknowledge that it will make a lot of you feel better if you're trying to achieve anything, whether it's giving up booze or starting a business. At the end of the day, this is all about getting over your fear. I think it's about how to jump off a cliff. There's a reason I have this horrible tattoo—I'm not going to show it right now—but on my left and right feet, I've got the words "act" and "now." It's a homemade tattoo. When I was getting sober, I used a needle and tattooed my feet because, like I said, I like inspirational stuff. I hope this podcast is a little bit of inspiration, but also provides practical ways for you to act now and change whatever it is you want to change. I'll be in the comments on YouTube, whether you're listening to this on YouTube or a podcast app. Go to our YouTube page, My First Million, and comment on this video. I'll try to reply to a bunch of them. If you are struggling with something, say what it is you're struggling with and what you're going to do to approach it and get over it. I think it feels good to put that stuff on paper. It feels good to label yourself about what you are now versus what you were. Let me know in the YouTube comments what you think about this.