Alcohol: The Unseen Damage! This Is The Real Damage of Drinking. It's More Than You Realise. Sobriety Advocate, Ruari Fairbairns.

0:00Alcohol is the world's most harmful drug. Totally. The fear of who am I if I choose to change my relationship with alcohol, that fear is what keeps the vast majority of people stuck. And what everyone is saying on the other side is... You've made me really have a bit of a lightbulb moment about my own life here. We live in a world where you can be precluded if you don't drink alcohol. People hated it if I didn't have a drink with them when I went out. Peer pressure is, yeah, should we catch up with the guys later? You know what, we should really go out for a drink sometime. It feels pressure, doesn't it?

0:36And this is the thing that we help people understand as well, is that... So that's the first most important thing. Okay. Where did you get to the point where you went, oh my God? The thing about it was, it was about hope. Alcohol is hopelessness. Yes. People are like, fancy having a drink because they want to switch off. But you're switching off the noise. And inside the noise, yes, there's pain. Yes, there's suffering. But so are these other voices. So are the opportunities to. Oh, God. My first interest in you was, I thought, oh, here's somebody else who is celebrating sobriety, but also really wanting to try and do good in the world.

1:21And I don't know anything about your backstory or what brought you to this place. So first of all, were you an alcoholic? Well, let's just check in on a couple of things here because this is a complicated answer. So first of all, the term alcoholic, that is an older term not used by the scientific community today. So what we use now today is alcohol use disorder. And if you're asking if I had alcohol use disorder in my life, absolutely. Most people who binge drink have alcohol use disorder. It ranges from mild, moderate, severe. Can I ask you something there? You said binge drink specifically.

2:09Not just binge drinking, but also daily drinking, all of those kind of things. Absolutely. But to give people the context of where I was. I'm just a typical party boy social person. I was always first in and I was always last out. And I got all of my energy from being the most outrageous, wild, unbelievably crazy person. Right. And so I loved the party. I loved that. And alcohol in my 20s also led to drugs. You know, I did a lot of party drugs when I was younger. And I think, you know, the things I didn't really realize. I didn't really link them to the alcohol consumption. I didn't realize that alcohol was causing these other things that I was trying to sort out.

2:54And I would say that when I did actually finally change my relationship with alcohol, that's when you look back and you go, oh, wow. You know, I didn't realize that I was not that bad, but that it was having that impact on me. What were the things? So let's look at it from the other perspective. So it's hard in the moment to see what impact alcohol is having on you because of this sort of, not just its brainwashing, but society's expectations and also the ignorance and things like that. So what happens when you remove alcohol? Well, I mean, the lights go on, you know, the sudden increase in energy, clarity, productivity, um ibs a decade of seeing doctors chinese health medicine you've got ibs taking medication disappeared right so psoriasis gone so depression anxiety significantly reduced um so there were all of these things that i wasn't really attributing to this regular alcohol consumption and even at the time it was only two maybe three times a week drinking probably binge drinking, sometimes heavily.

4:07So, and that still today is pretty normal. That's what normal drinking behavior looks like. And yet I had all of these benefits and talk about the other benefits, right? Relationships significantly improved, happiness levels higher, you know, just doubled my business in the first 12 months of changing my relationship with alcohol. So it's instead of us looking at it like what problems is alcohol causing you? Let's have the conversation of what is alcohol robbing you of that you are not being? There's so much that I want to unpick here, but I'm going to start with, I guess, the end of your journey.

4:49When was it too much? Where did you get to the point where you went, oh, my God, I'm literally not handling myself in the way? Were you a middle drinker that tipped over the edge? And then you went, right, OK, I have to stop. And what made you want to help other people? So there were a few warning signs. I never had a rock bottom moment. And it's again, it's another parody. It's another thought in the space that you must find rock bottom. We're going to debunk that today, okay? So, A, there was some of the health and niggling. I knew, so I'd started meditating on the train to and from work. And this meditation, which is one of the things we highly recommend for people, meditation builds the gap between stimulus and response.

5:40So if stimulus is I have a craving or I'm stressed or I'm tired, when there is no gap, it's just you reach for a drink, okay? it's on autopilot. You stub your toe, you lash out. So as you start to meditate, we build a gap inside that. And inside that gap is intuition and wisdom. So in between, I'm stressed and tired comes, actually, I don't want to feel that rubbish tomorrow. So I'm probably not going to have a drink. And so that's why meditation can be so powerful in awareness. I think all of this came from that. It really was the birthing part into there from meditation. so going on the train to and from i would use it as my transition to become the other version so i could be dad and husband and things like that but on that train journey i just got this continued knowing you know in the beginning for people with their relationship with alcohol because it's so marketed it's so peer pressured it's so socially normal the knowing is very quiet It's like, hey, Davina, this alcohol thing is costing you more than you realize.

6:48And it starts very gently. I think it's happening to most people who drink, and it always happens on Sunday after a binge fest. Oh, God. So true. The regret. Do you want to know something? Yeah. In the community, a large survey in this study done, they asked people, what was the time it took from the first thoughts of, I think alcohol is causing me trouble to asking for help the average time was 11 years yeah that doesn't surprise I hear this all the time yeah yeah I'm here to shorten that then that is what we are here to do music to so many people's ears I hear this from people specifically I guess because these are my people um menopausal women in particular you know that it's a tough time for your life.

7:39You've got a lot going on. But I hear often, I'm not happy with my relationship with alcohol or its relationship with me, I think is more. 100%. So just on menopause, then we'll go back. So menopause, alcohol is kryptonite for menopause. Totally. You are five times more likely to have significant menopause symptoms if you are regularly consuming alcohol and the the limit 14 right this is this the recommended limit this is six drinks of wine a week there's nothing to what people are drinking and that isn't like saying you should be drinking six of us that is the limit that you said that's the limit yeah that's the risk of drinking oh i haven't had my 14 yet that's like exactly so um yes i mean i it's interesting because you've just confirmed with a stat something that i see and hear that women feel worse symptom wise but also the hangover it appears that um in some way they are processing alcohol in a completely different way because the hangovers appear to my to my experience with my friends much worse yeah exactly it is absolutely true and we need to have more conversations like this to be saying to people that this is only making it significantly worse.

8:59What is insidious about alcohol specifically is that for everything that people are taking alcohol for is what it is taking away. How do you mean? I have social anxiety. Alcohol increases anxiety. I am feeling sad and depressed, so I'm going to have the comfort of a drink. Alcohol is one of the world's most powerful depressants, it creates depression. I can't sleep. I can't sleep. Alcohol destroys me. I'm struggling with menopause. I need to have a drink to soothe me. So everything that what people take alcohol for is what is creating. And this is why Professor David Nutt and all of his research showed that alcohol is the world's most harmful drug, right?

9:43Which I think is surprising and shocking for people. It is the world's most harmful drug because of that way it is so wrapped up in society and so readily available. And I would also say, which I really want to come back onto, is that there is trillions of dollars, pounds, whatever you want to say, spent on making us not draw our attention to the truth about alcohol. I really hope you're enjoying this episode. And if you can, give us a follow. So how did you stop? And what made you want to stop? In the journey, I started the meditation. That's when this started awareness. And I thought, you know, I want to, and what else was in that awareness?

10:26Well, I mean, my marriage wasn't great. You know, we'd had a baby and I was still living the broker life. I mean, I remember one Tuesday morning at five o 'clock, unable to find my keys. So I just slept on the doorstep and my wife opening up the door at what, 6.30 in the morning with a six month old baby with her husband asleep on the doorstep. Hello, Beaconsfield. So, you know, that is not very conducive to a successful marriage. Some people who live in certain environments would say, well, that's ridiculous. Well, who, what kind of behavior would that be? So I was in that kind of environment where I was having all this grief from home.

11:04It's just grief from home. Everyone gets it. And it was easier to go to the pub and say the train was delayed, you know, rather than actually go home and face the drama, the anger, the fights, the whatever it was, and then get back on the train. Also, what's hitting me now, the story that you just told, is how many people will identify with that story, men and women. Totally. And how sad it is when I'm assuming you're still with your wife. My lovely wife. Well, rather, she is still with me. That's just how different your relationship is now that you've shifted all of that. And we can come to that in a moment.

11:49So you're there. You've fallen asleep on the doorstep. it's going downhill and alcohol is largely responsible It's a big part and we've been wrestling with it and at one point she said it's me or the job and luckily I chose her and in the same sense my wonderful boss at the time gave me a six month sabbatical to travel around the world and when he did he said but fix your marriage A marriage is like a business, right? It requires investment. It requires a lot of energy to keep it going and successful. And often there are problems and challenges and stressful. And if you are not investing energy in your marriage like your business, then I'm not surprised it's going to fail because your business would too.

12:39Are you still drinking at this point? Yes. What's your drinking like? No job and getting on better with your wife? Has it calmed down? Yes. I mean, again, it was just social. It's just social fun stuff. So, you know, once or twice a week at weekend, have fun party stuff. On my 30th birthday, it was a little bit crazy. And we did a wine tour and it was a three-day extravaganza. And the thing I loved, I mean, I remember sitting on a little pier with a bottle of Jack on 10 o 'clock the morning the next day. And that used to be my favorite time, right? Because all of the loopy loose stuff comes out then.

13:21Everyone's got a little bit loopy. You've not had any sleep. Oh, after no sleep? Oh, all the way through. Oh, God, okay. And you're carrying on the next day. Wow. That used to be my fun time. Oh, God. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So, but what I sort of later transpired, or now I understand, is how much all of that fits ADHD like a glove. that all of this is rooted in the same thing. We'll talk about this a bit later, but it's all rooted in our central nervous system. It's all rooted in these behaviors and how it affects our brain. And then it leads on to why alcohol is really kryptonite for ADHD, but why so many people with mental or neurodivergence become problematic with drinking.

14:05It's like three times more likely to have a problem with alcohol and drugs if you are ADHD. So, yeah. So you came back to the UK. So yeah, we came back to the UK. The part of a little bit of my story that we missed out on is, you know, when I was younger, I really struggled with my mental health. I struggled to fit in. And at the age of 13, I had my first suicide attempt. And then 14, I tried properly. And it was a bit of a miracle I survived in a moment of timing. and my parents were desperate. Sorry if I get emotional. My parents were desperate for me to see what they saw. I hope this is going to be difficult.

14:53And that was, in their eyes, that I was unique, I was special, I was gifted. But in the world, it wasn't seen like that. It was, you're trouble, you're bad, you're naughty. And it created this divide. and my dad had worked for Childline. So he knew about trying to get children to find hope. He knew that the most important thing was to give them some form of hope because that lights the fire for their own survivor. And so in that, his idea was, you know, why don't you write a letter to somebody, somebody who inspires you? and connect like that. So I was like, I'll write a letter to Richard Branson.

15:40So I wrote a letter to Richard and I said lots of things, but I'm going to change the world one day. I'm looking forward to having lunch with you. I mean, this is a remarkable story because I wasn't really aware of your childhood and obviously to navigate that to survive, which it sounds like you only just did. And then to go through all of that life, to meet someone, fall in love, merely lose her, keep her. I mean, this is a miracle. It is. Here. It is a miracle. Someone's looking out for you. Yeah. She saved me. She saved me. If she hadn't been pulling back on those reins, I would have partied off into the distance.

16:30Would you say that it was like slowly committing suicide? Well, it is. You'd had this attempt when you were 14, but here you were again, doing it all over again, but just very slowly. This is what most people are doing. And if, you know, the suicide thing is right down at the end. Yes. But it's a sliding scale of self-deprecation, of self-destruction. Self-loathing. This brooding, of destroying self-worth, of destroying self-confidence, and the tools that we subconsciously use to continue to facilitate that journey. I think this will speak to so many people because we're, you know, when I got clean, it was like, I just hate myself.

17:15It's like, get clean or die. I hate myself so much. It was crystal clear that unless I did something. But you didn't have that massive thing. so you you had this journey with your wife and then you were like okay I'm gonna stop how did you do that so um actually um I just in the similar thing there was a couple of things that happened to it obviously there was pressure and there was this stuff and I wanted to be that and I wanted to change and approach my boss and I said I'm thinking about taking a break from booze and he was like what you are committing commercial suicide not good job wow wow I mean And so then I was like, right, I need to do something about Jen's anger.

17:56So I'm going to take an anger management program. So I took an online anger management program. And guess what? Guess what I found out? I'm really angry. I found out I'm really angry. And I was like, wow, I've got so much anger. And on that discovery of that thing, it was a wonderful online program. It was a lot of exchange programs. So forwards, it said, the two biggest instigators, fire igniters of anger are alcohol and coffee. And I was like, oh, wow. Okay, well, it's a 90-day program. I'm going to drop them both. Ah, I thought you were going to say, I drop coffee.

18:37So you did both. So I did both for 90 days. I did coffee for 30 days. And then I did alcohol for 90 days in the beginning. And a complete abstention. Yeah, a complete abstention. That 90 days was amazing. I mean, the lights on. But also what I saw was, oh my God, my numbers improved. And that's why I was like, right, I need to carry this on. However, I did have a very significant challenge. And that is that we live in a world where you can be precluded if you don't drink alcohol. I had this in such a major way. People hated it if I didn't have a drink with them when I went out. Yeah. Yeah. I have stood with a bunch of guys on a dad's sesh, big, big party going on.

19:29And the dads are all standing around. and they're like, right, boys, we're going to win the cricket competition this year. And they're like, yeah, we've really got to do it. Everyone's got to, come on, we can do it. And one of the boys goes, we should invite John. He's the best player by far. And everyone's like, yeah, let's get John in this year. And then one guy pipes up and goes, yeah, but John doesn't drink. And they're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, forget that. They would rather lose the cricket competition than they would invite John, who's the best player who doesn't drink. So in the industry, I knew that I would lose business if I didn't drink with some people.

20:05And so this is where I had to start to step up my game. A few things. One, stealth drinking. This is lots of tactics, lots of tools. We actually teach people this. And when I tell people this, they go, you have to teach people to fake drink. Oh, yes. Right. So I know people that have done that. Yeah. Go to a bar early, tip the bomb on 50 quid or whatever it is, 20 quid, and say, whatever happening, I'm drinking alcohol-free. And you need to make it look like I'm drinking. Alcohol-free beer in a pint glass. Back then, it wasn't on tap or anything, right? They'd get Bex Blue. And so I would do all this, you know, if somebody buys you a round, have a sip.

20:44Don't make a sip, right? Go to the toilet, pour it away. Go to the other side of the bar, order yourself an alcohol-free one. Lots of tools and tips like that. And if you get away with the evening, maybe having a sip here and then, it was a win. Sometimes there are partners at home that you've got to do stealth drinking with because they feel left out. Or they feel like you're pointing a finger at them going, you've got a problem if you're not drinking. Let's talk about partners. Come on to that because this is important. So you're teaching people to stealth drink. Yeah. I mean, this is not. Obviously, it's in effect.

21:14It's in industries. I know. It's crazy. So it is real for many people. And people in high-powered roles were male-dominated industries, females. Do you know, in our research published with Sterling University, we surveyed peer pressure around the UK, right? How much peer pressure do you get? What kind of peer pressure is it? Who gives you the most peer pressure? Where is it from? the highest peer pressure in the entire country from any particular demographic is middle-aged women professional ladies in london by their bosses wow wow crazy it was like 60 percent of women felt like they were pressured to drink alcohol and you know let's just talk about that right peer pressure is not come on have a drink have a drink peer pressure is um yeah should we catch up with the guys later.

22:12That's it. You don't even realize how powerful and impactful it is. You know what? We should really go out for a drink sometime. Or, oh God, that's a meeting, first time with somebody. They've said drink. It's going to be alcohol. What do I do? It feels pressure, doesn't it? To someone who's - It's our own. It's our own constructs in our own brain. And this is the thing that we help people understand as well is that so much of our drinking is perpetuated by that social conditioning. In fact, it's the vast majority of it, right? It's so readily available. It's expected by society. It started off with billions and billions and billions of marketing dollars and pounds that created this whole social expectation and movement.

22:54So all of this creates a situation where we're expected to drink and that is what the normality of society does. That's what everyone does. If we released that and we let go, and this is what we help people see, is that the vast majority of their feeling of peer pressure comes from themselves, right? They do it to themselves. And that actually, once you push past those early parts, right, and, you know, get past it, it actually evaporates very, very quickly, very easily. And then when people start to get into the routine, they're like, this is actually really easy. It's easy for me to not drink now.

23:30And I think when you prove to the people that you're drinking or that want to drink with you and that you've got a bit of a funny thing in you, when you prove that actually you are as much fun, you still do karaoke, you're still going to dance all night. In fact, you're going to be having more fun than the person that's been drinking all night. Indeed. People will realize that not drinking makes you as fun, if not better, than everybody that is. 100%. But it takes a while to get that message through. It does take a long while. And there's complications in there. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes it can, you know, you can feel lonely and it can feel like you're missing out and it cannot be as exciting evening.

24:05I mean, come on. At 10, 30, 11, now people are starting to say the same thing over and over again. Yes, I know. And you're not drinking. You're like, I want to get out. And you don't stay till 12 or 1 or everything else. And there's groups of people who say, well, nothing good happens after 11 o 'clock. But some of that is fun and some of that is things. So there's a lot of complexity around it. and I think overall the fear of who am I if I choose to change my relationship with alcohol who am I how do I deal with peer pressure how am I going to do this how am I going to switch off how am I going to sleep what am I going to do with my time that fear is what keeps the vast majority of people stuck and what everyone is saying on the other side is I had no idea the impact alcohol is having on me and I wish I'd done it sooner so well couldn't you just quickly tell me about your program so when you let's come on to that yeah so so through this i took a break from alcohol um from there i then um uh andy was a broker with me he he had gone alcohol free as well we got together and we came up with this idea of one year no beer this challenge this thing that you could do that you'd be proud of like a tough mother so we came up with this master plan of one year no beer it was going to be a challenge and in the beginning it was all for free now this just shows what a terrible businessman I am because we sent it out to the world for free.

25:29I thought it was going to go viral. I actually invested hundreds of thousands of pounds of my own money and I was trying to get it to go viral everywhere and go crazy. And it did, you know, we had 20 ,000 people sign up in the first year. And I remember lying in bed next to my wife with a, with a, with a handwritten letter from a son saying, I've got my dad back. And you're like, I can't believe this. I can't believe that something so simple as taking a break from alcohol could have such profound impacts on people's lives, their areas of life and everything else. And so this is where this obsession started to grow inside of me of like, I almost feel like I have a gift.

26:19Many gifts. I'm kidding. A gift. The gift is that if I can use my words to convince someone who's regularly drinking alcohol to change their relationship with alcohol, then I can probably profoundly change their life. And I don't know how many tools or things out there that you have for that. So then we started to build up this organization. It was still just a course. It It was a program. It was a community. Wonderful thing to lift off. And rather frustrated, I sent this tweet to a journalist, ended up getting a 10-minute feature on BBC World News in over 200 countries. I mean, kind of unheard of for a business to get that kind of exposure.

26:57Huge. A friend of mine was in Italy, and he called me up, and he said, it's a friend of a friend, and he said, Ruri, I've just seen you on the news. I think what you're doing is amazing. I'm meeting the Dalai Lama next week. Would you like to meet him with me? So I was like, okay, let me check my diary. So hopped over to Pisa. Again, we were supposed to be somewhere else. This is another whole story, but I ended up being in the front row, which I shouldn't have been, amongst a whole bunch of kids. And there were kids asking him questions in front of thousands of people in Pisa. And in a moment, he paused them.

27:33The Dalai Lama paused them like this. And he said, is there somebody who would like to ask a question here? And I went, me. And I was the only adult out of maybe 20 kids to be randomly standing there to ask him a question. And I say, hi, my name's Ruri. And we have been helping people all over the world change their relationship with addictions using what Tibetan and Buddhist people have been using for centuries. Meditation. What would you say to somebody who is wrestling with an addiction? And he said,

28:13he said, I don't know to help people with their addictions, but I look to people like you who are doing good work in this world. How we help the world is we teach our children to feel their emotions. And this is his big thing. And we're going to come back onto how important that is for people and why that's intrinsically linked to our relationship with alcohol. When I stepped down off that stage, it was like a lightning bolt of purpose. I was like, this is it. This is why I'm on this freaking planet. So I went in Monday morning, handed in my notice. My boss said to me, what? I mean, you can carry on doing it.

28:58It doesn't matter. But I was like, I can't do another day. I have to go and pursue this. so um that really then put a lot more energy and focus into driving it then i started raising money and this is another crazy thing about the the in the work we are doing somebody said to me well why don't you see if there's an investor in your customer list so i wrote a little letter to the customers i was like hey guys you love you all you're amazing this is what i'm trying to do i want to impact billions of lives i want to change the conversation from problem to prevention right will you support us and i thought maybe i'd come into one or two emails i came in the next day to 74 emails we raised 1.1 million in five weeks just from our customers yeah let's talk about the sponsors of this podcast zoe membership a personalized nutrition program i always get asked why i look after my body and the answer i want to look good naked joke don't worry that's not it.

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30:57That's Zoe.com and use code DAVINA10. Oh, and by the way, as you clearly like podcasts, you should go and check out their new show, Zoe Science and Nutrition. It's so good. I am a massive fan. I love how they do all of this research and they give it all away for free. Over the years, I knew I was getting closer to Richard. And I knew that it was an important part for me, for my dad. First of all, I heard that his photographer on Necker Island had signed up to the program. Then I heard that his water sports instructor. And then one day I got a message from a very successful business owner who had met at a networking event.