Why I Got Sober (for entrepreneurs)

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
All right, today is a special episode. So this is going to be a video on YouTube, but also on the podcast. So if you're listening to this, you're probably on my YouTube, or you are on the My First Million podcast. If you're on my YouTube, then you probably don't know me. But basically, my name is Sam Parr. I'm most popular because I started this company called The Hustle, and I recently just sold it to HubSpot. It was a really big deal for me and my family, and it was a pretty good exit. It was a popular media company that I sold. So millions of people read us each day, know who we are, and I guess you can say I'm a successful entrepreneur. I mean, a lot of people would say that. There's people that are way more successful, obviously, but that's what I'm known for. But I'm also the host of a podcast that my company owned, and it's one of the top 10 business podcasts. And we talk about cool ideas and where we brainstorm different ideas, and we have a lot of famous guests on. And it's really cool podcast. It's called My First Million. We just brainstorm. I mean, it's to simplify it. But today, I'm talking about something kind of strange, something kind of different. So I've been sober for about seven or eight, I think seven years this July.
And I stopped drinking when I was 23 or 24 I'm about 30 now, I'm 30 now, 31 And it's kind of weird to talk about this on a business podcast or on a business channel. But a lot of people who are focused on business or who are focused on high achievers or achieving, they have a lot of the same things that I have, which is I love to go all in on stuff. I get obsessed about things. I can get addicted to things very easily. And those attributes are also what can be part of being an alcoholic and having substance addictions.
And I had that and I overcame it. And I wanted to talk about that. And interestingly, what made me addicted to alcohol is actually what has made me a pretty successful entrepreneur and fairly successful at a lot of different things I do in life.
So I've got some notes here. So you might see me look at my notes every once in a while, but I've got a large Twitter following and I tweeted out to them that I was going to do this. And I got hundreds of messages. So with people asking questions, so I'm going to try and go through all of the questions that people answered. What I want to do today is I want to explain to you how I got addicted and what that was like, but then also how I fixed it. And then six or seven things that I learned and how my life changed and what I noticed about being sober after having an alcohol problem.
So let's just start and get into it. But before I do, I do want to say none of this is advice. So maybe I'll say things in a sort of way where it sounds like I'm giving advice, but it's really just maybe my phrasing. But I do want to say right now, I'm not giving advice. Also, I've studied this a little bit from a science perspective, but not nearly enough that I should be considered an authoritative figure on anything related to addiction, on chemical imbalance, on depression, on anxiety, trauma. I'm not an expert. Again, I might phrase some things like saying like, well, I felt this way because of X, Y and Z. This is really all my opinion. That's it.
So I also don't think that you should give up drinking necessarily. I don't know who you are. I think for a lot of people, drinking can be great. It can make your life better actually. But for people like me, it made it horrible. And my life is way better now. And if you're struggling with that, then this video will help you. But again, I'm not judging you. I'm not telling you, I think you should do this. And don't even think that what I'm saying is our facts other than it's how I live my life. So I just wanted to say that because it's important that you don't put too much emphasis on this, because I know you see this guy on YouTube, or you hear me in your earphones. And for some reason, you think that I have authority on this. I don't. So I started drinking when I was about 16 I grew up in Missouri. And I think it's part of like Midwestern America. I would say it's part of a lot of America, but particularly in Midwest America, there's not too much to do. And you just go to parties when you're high. So when you start drinking, but I grew up in like a kind of a working class, normal family, middle class family. And drinking is part of the culture. You go to the bars on the weekends, like with your family, and you go to soccer games and sports games, and there's alcohol. And as I grew up, you go to parties when you're 16, 17, 18, and you drink. And it's just very normal. When we were younger, like fitness really wasn't a thing. Eating healthy wasn't really a thing. So you just drink a lot.