6 Things I Learned From Not Drinking For 1 Year

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
Eleven years ago, this month, I gave up alcohol. And in today's episode, I want to share some of the things that I've learned along the way.
All right, 11 years ago, I gave up alcohol, and in today's episode, I want to share some of the things that I've learned since then. So the reason I'm doing this is at my one year anniversary of giving up drinking, I wrote this blog post. You can Google it, it's called Six Things I Learned From Not Drinking For a Year. And today, I thought I'll recap that blog post, but also share some of the things that I didn't add to that blog post that have kind of come true in the last 10 years. And I'm sharing here on My First Million because I think a lot of people would enjoy this, but also because this isn't just about giving up alcohol. So it doesn't matter if you're giving up drinking or you want to give up drinking or you want to just create a new habit. I have found that these things that I've learned, they can apply to anyone trying to make a major life change. And so lesson number one, figure out your why and go all in on that. And so let me explain. So I started drinking in my late teens with just my friends, just like most people when they start doing it. But what I noticed was that it dulled my anxiety a ton. And I am a pretty anxious person. I don't know if you could tell if you listen to this podcast, I bet you can't, but I have a fairly high anxiety. And I noticed that when I started drinking, my anxiety just kind of went away. And so as I got more and more into drinking, I was just like, this feels awesome. I don't feel anxious. I'm going to keep doing it. So it was very much self-medication. And by the time I was like 21, I was super into alcohol to the point where probably ages 22 to 23, I was intoxicated basically 24 hours a day. I was drunk 24 hours a day. First thing in the morning, you start, you go all day and then you wake up a little drunk or a little hung over and you just keep going. And so 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. And I felt I wanted to feel life because I didn't really feel like a lot of emotions during that period because they were hidden. And so my reason was I wanted to feel life and I wanted to not ruin my potential. And so like funerals, wedding celebrations, meeting someone you like, breaking up with that person, I think I and many other people, we would drink because for some reason we didn't want to face reality, whether it's trauma you had or I'm not sure why other people experience it, but you want to like cover it up. And I'm not against alcohol and drugs for other people. But for me, it basically just like masked how I felt. And I hated that. And then I realized that when I got sober, facing challenging situations, it felt like this massive adrenaline rush. I felt like so good about facing things that I previously was nervous about. So it took about six months after getting sober. But on month six, month seven, month eight, I noticed that I would face these challenging situations. Like, for example, I was 23, 24 when I quit, and like every single 23, 24-year-old guy, meeting girls is like the number one focus in my life. And I noticed that when I was like six, seven months in, 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 got to feel that again. I got to feel that again. I got to feel it again. And I noticed that it happened with business. It happened with so many other facets of my life that I got to feel this extreme emotion that for a lot of sober people, it's probably just that's just how they feel. But it felt awesome. And so I felt like I was alive again. And so I actually loved like confrontation. I loved like nervous feelings because it felt like a rush to experience some of those things. And so it was important to lean into that. And I had to sit down for a minute and figure out why am I doing this? And I just always try to remind myself that. And I think that that's the case for any goal that you try to do when you change your life is you got to constantly remind yourself, why are you actually doing this?