30 Day Alcohol Reboot

Perhaps you are a person who has been drinking for a long time and you just want to know what not drinking alcohol feels like. Whether you want to take a short break, 30 days, or you want to take a longer break, perhaps permanently, this course will show you how to do that.

Why 30 days specifically? To begin with, 30 days is a great milestone. It's something that your brain can get its neurons around. It's long enough to make a difference in terms of habit change, but short enough that you can see the end result.

Is taking a 30 Day Alcohol Reboot going to cause you health problems? The short answer is no. The real health problems are caused to you by consuming alcohol in the first place. 

Alcohol is a toxin to your body, it's also a neurotoxin, which means it intoxicate's your brain - and I don't mean that in a good way. 

For the most part, quitting drinking alcohol is not a medical condition. Although, in the interests of your health, it's best not to take a chance. You should pay a visit to your doctor before you try quitting alcohol. I'm sure they will tell you that there is no problem.

Here's a quick explainer video about how this course is designed and how you should go about using it

Let's get going :-)

Victor Frankl said, "Those who have a wide to live, can bear with almost any how".
Laurence Olivier said, "Have a very good reason for everything you do".
What are your reasons for wanting to quit alcohol, even for 30 days?
This will have a big impact on your motivation. That's why I have this short lecture at the beginning of this section. Take some time to think about your own reasons. It can mean the difference between failure and success.

Our motivations for doing anything really come down to a few different areas. Pain and pleasure is one. What gives you pleasure is much less likely to motivate you than what brings you pain. Our frontal cortex give us the ability to make logical deductions. We have enough information these days to tell us that alcohol is bad for us, despite the psychological distortions that we attempt to use in order to cover up this logical information. Our emotions also give us a pretty good insight into what is truth and what is fiction. We can be motivated by the things we want to do in our lives, our goals. What do you really want to achieve? Is alcohol standing in your way? Who do you want to be after this 30 days?

These days we hear a lot about the benefits of drinking alcohol. Let me assure you that most of the studies are funded by the very people who are selling you the magic potion. The studies are full of sleights of hand, tricks of the eye, and old wizards hiding behind faded curtains. However, the benefits of stopping drinking alcohol for 30 days are very real.

One of the most obvious and life enhancing benefits of quitting drinking alcohol is an almost certain improvement to your health. How can your health not improve? Stop introducing this awful poisonous substance to any living organism and you are bound to see great improvements. On the opposite end of the scale, one of the reasons most people will state for even thinking about quitting drinking alcohol are the hangovers. How can this be normal? How can this be healthy? We don't question our hangovers because we are so used to having hangovers. The hangover is part of our culture. It's also a part of our drinking. You cannot have one without the other.

How much does alcohol affect your mind and your brain? Alcohol is one of the few substances which can pass straight through the blood brain barrier, the protective bubble encapsulating your brain. This barrier prevents all kinds of nastiness from entering into that sacred domain. People drink to combat stress, anxiety, or depression. In fact, alcohol does nothing to combat any of these things. It may alleviate some of the symptoms, giving momentary relief in the form of oblivion, but they just come back the next morning stronger than ever. 

Taking a 30 Day Alcohol Reboot will give you increased self-control and a better mental perspective. It will also give your brain a well-deserved break, perhaps preventing some of the physical and mental diseases that can happen to those who consume alcohol.

You probably think that alcohol gives you an edge when it comes to socialising. It lowers your inhibitions and allows you to speak more freely. But think about what is happening when you are getting drunk. Everything is felt on the inside, physically and mentally. Your physical body is put under massive stress as it attempts to rid itself of this toxin. Your abilities to walk are reduced. Your abilities to even stand still have reduced. Your sight, hearing, touch, smell, and voice become impaired. Mentally, alcohol makes you less intelligent in the moment. The more you drink, the less capable you become in general. You handicap your mental faculties, retarding any sensible thought processes. If by socialising you mean talking gibberish to another human being while they in turn speak gibberish to you, then yes, you are socialising. But this is no strong basis for relationships. Retarded gibberish speak has a very short shelf life. This is one of the areas in my life which truly improved within a very short space of time. This was a huge surprise to me, being the "life of the party" and all.

One of the reasons I quit drinking was because every time I tried to take one step forwards, I ended up taking to back. My life was working in a perverse backwards motion. On most days when I drank, it was like Groundhog Day, over and over and over again. In general, we have approximately 27,500 days in the average lifespan. The loss of one day is bad enough. Alcohol drinking robs you of massive amounts of time. Time that you will never get back. Time that you won't even remember happened. Your phone will be full of memories, and that will be the only memories you have of these events, events that are supposed to evoke happy memories. Birthdays. Weddings. Christmas. Holidays. Celebrations of all manner. Times to remember stolen by insipid instant gratification.

You have an opportunity of taking back the fun in life. You can stop the flow now.

A 30 Day Alcohol Reboot is not going to remove the habit from your life altogether. But it will allow you enough time to experience what life is like without this toxin. With a clear head, you can weigh up the pros and cons. 30 days will also reduce your overall tolerance to alcohol. It will boost your self-confidence. It will allow you to stop thinking about drinking in the same way. It will also reduce or maybe eliminate some of the triggers, rituals, and behaviours that form your habit.

One of the big stumbling blocks that most people will find when they attempt a 30 day challenge, such as this, is one of mindset rather than ability. 99.99% of drinkers are capable of quitting drinking alcohol for 30 days. In the majority of cases, there are no serious side-effects. For most people, the only challenge they will face is discomfort. And discomfort, my friends, is a mental hurdle. Throughout this course I'm going to teach you ways of keeping things simple, especially in your mind, so you can push through even your most stubborn days.

Can you really change something as deep-rooted as drinking alcohol in just 30 days? It depends on your viewpoint. If you have the view that you are an alcoholic and alcoholism is a disease, then the likelihood of you being able to even make a dent in this habit in just 30 days are highly unlikely. 

If on the other hand you are like me, you believe that drinking alcohol is just a product of a habit, a habit which has grown deeper roots over the years, granted, but a habit nonetheless, then you are indeed in control.

You might not be able to completely eliminate this habit in 30 days. But you will be able to make great strides in breaking down certain parts of the habit, weakening others, and even eliminating some of its basic parts.

Will quitting drinking alcohol for 30 days reset your tolerance? It's a fair question. Because we are dealing with a drug here, and the human body has a fairly standard way in which it itself deals with drugs/toxins, the chance of resetting your tolerance in 30 days are pretty slim. This is not to say that your tolerance levels will not be lowered. They will. But once you start drinking again, if you start drinking again, the wiring in your brain which is responsible for creating and maintaining habits will re-fire very quickly, and you will find yourself back to your old tolerance levels.

Habits are something which are built up over a long period of time, in most cases. And, even though habit extinction doesn't take as long as habit construction, it does still take time. The point of a 30 Day Alcohol Reboot is not to reset your habit, is to give you experience of what it's like to not be a slave to this particular habit.

As with any challenge in life, the 30 Day Alcohol Reboot will throw some obstacles in your path. Some of these obstacles will come from things that are outside of your control, but most of them are self-made. As I say in the beginning of this video, I'm not very comfortable about creating a list of obstacles. Why? Because the mere fact that I'm suggesting obstacles is a surefire way to put the thought of those obstacles in your mind. Once the thought is there, the human mind can go about creating the obstacles themselves, in its funny insane way. However, having said that, just the fact that I've told you that the thought might spring up the actual obstacle, may be enough to prevent. And at least if you understand that the obstacle is real, you will much better chance of handling it. Some obstacles need to be avoided. Others need to be dealt with. And others just need to be handled with kid gloves, very gently, very smoothly, just pushing through the obstacle until you get to the other side.

Just as I was saying in the last video that the mere fact that I bring up the idea of a particular obstacle can have the effect of allowing your brain to create that obstacle in real life, such as the same with fears. The section is all about expectations. You can feed your expectations or you can starve them. Fear is one of those particular beasts. In this video were going to talk about automated emotions, feeding beliefs and "facts", causing early fears, and influencing us throughout our lives.

How long does it take for all the alcohol to leave your body? It's a good question.

It depends on a variety of different factors. It depends on your age, your size, your metabolic rate, your metabolic evolution, and it also depends on what you mean by "all the alcohol".

There are two definitions here. The first is the "measurable" alcohol. That term "measurable" is not only determined by the alcohol inside your body but also the instruments doing the "measuring". Does the fact that these instruments can no longer "measure" any significant amount of alcohol in your body determine that there is in actuality no more alcohol in your body? Or, does alcohol's influence persist long after it can be reliably measured? From personal experience, I have felt the influence of alcohol long after any possible detection in blood or breath. And, the long-term consequences of alcohol drinking are not only due to the damage, they are due to the accumulated residue.

For most people, this is a non-issue. Most people will never experience delirium tremens. If you don't experience it as part of your normal alcohol drinking behaviour, it's unlikely that you will experience it when you stop. However, as I said earlier on, I am not a medical doctor and cannot give medical advice. You are much better off seeking the advice of a medical doctor in this instance. It's best to be on the safe side.

If it's good to stop for 30 days, how much better is it to stop for 60 days, or 90 days?

If the benefits accumulate after 30 days, again, how many more benefits can you expect if you sustain this Alcohol Reboot for longer?

The common thinking, when it comes to quitting drinking alcohol, is that you cannot do it without rehab or some form of 12 step program.

According to a study by the NIAAA, over one third of the people who quit drinking alcohol, do so on their own, without any formal treatment. This is one third of people who have been classed as having "alcohol dependence". You can read the study here: https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh29-2/131-142.pdf
Success rates for the more traditional recovery programs are thought to be in mere single digits. So, when somebody asks can you quit drinking alcohol in your own, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Our minds however have been tainted by both the big alcohol industries and the big quit alcohol industries.

Alcohol withdrawal is another fear that people seem to have when they are about to quit drinking alcohol. It's an understandable fear. And like any fear, it is open for feeding. In this case, the fear is being fed by the quit drinking alcohol industry. Most people feel far more discomfort before they quit than they will ever feel after they quit. Think about the hangovers, as just one example. And the more you drink, the more discomfort you will feel. Again, this is something that you must take on an individual basis. I cannot tell you if you are going to suffer from withdrawal symptoms or how bad they will be. The best person for that job is your local doctor.

Preparation for the 30 Day Alcohol Reboot means going through the process of getting yourself ready to quit alcohol for 30 days. The better your preparation, the more successful your experience will be.

"Fail to plan, plan to fail" Benjamin Franklin 

Quitting drinking alcohol for 30 days requires a plan. It doesn't need much of a plan, but you do need some preparation, a little bit of forethought, and some basic planning. 

If you were going on your vacation, you would do some planning. Even a short journey requires a rudimentary plan. The shopping list you take with you to the supermarket is another form of planning. If you would plan for the supermarket, why wouldn't you put some time into planning for something this important, something which has the possibility of changing your life forever.

In your personal preparation, you have three areas of control. These are your mind and body, your environment, and the people in your life. We’ll deal with each of these areas from greater to lesser influence, starting with preparing your mind and body. Your mind and body are at the top of your sphere of influence. You have a lot of control over the physical sensation you feel by using your mind, reframing or reevaluating those sensations.Your body can almost stand anything, it's your mind you have to convince…

Your next level of control is your environment. Some of your environment is under your control… Your house, your car, your workplace even. Other areas of your environment are outside of your control. Then there are areas where you have control in whether you put yourself into those environment or not.

The third level of control is for the people in your life.The people in your life represent the area where you have the least amount of control. Having said that, this is certainly an area which can have the most influence. 

John Donne said, "No man is an island”. He was right. We all need other people. It is much easier to achieve good results in any goal you want in life if you have the cooperation of other people, especially the people who are closest to you. But how do you do that? How do you elicit the levels of cooperation you need?

When is the right time to start your 30 Day Alcohol Reboot? Some people believe that an immediate start is essential. I don't. Again, this whole course is about preparation. When you start any new journey, you have what is known as the beginners mind. You don't know what to expect. You have your assumptions, but you have no real idea if those assumptions are true or false. You have no experience in the life that you are about to undertake. This is the one area that causes more failure than anything else. Quitting drinking alcohol, after all, is very simple. You simply do not put any more alcohol into your mouth and that is the job done. The more difficult part of this journey is going from the beginners mind, where you are uncomfortable, into the experienced mind, where you are back in your comfort zone. Preparation gives you a running start on the beginners mind. By the time you get to your starting date, you are already ahead in experience, expectations, and knowledge.

As we said a couple of videos ago, no man is an island, you need cooperation from your fellow man. An Alcohol Reboot Buddy is a person who will be at your side, literally or figuratively, through the next few weeks. They are your accountability partner. Ideally, this person will be taking the journey with you, but not necessarily. So, how do you choose your Reboot Buddy? And how do you help each other?

"Our goals should serve as markers, measurements of the progress we make in pursuit of something greater than ourselves" Simon Sinek.

When you are creating goals in your life, measurement is an important factor. You cannot achieve what you cannot measure. But it is notoriously difficult to measure the outcomes of something you are eliminating. How do you measure not doing something? You have to look outside the box. There are several different methods of getting the measurements that you need to track your progress.

One of the problems that people will face when they are quitting drinking for the first time is confusion about what to do and what not to do. The first port of call for many people when they are looking for help is the Internet. The Internet is a great resource but it has its own issues. It was the first place I went when I was looking for information about quitting drinking alcohol. But it's a scary place. There's a lot of information and a lot of disinformation. I always recommend, regardless of how healthy or unhealthy you feel, that you visit your doctor before you start on this journey. Don't play games with your life.

If you were trying to run a marathon, you wouldn't purchase your trainers, shorts, vest, and head out the next day for your first 26 miles. You would slowly build up, day after day, adding a half-mile here, and while there, until you are sure you could run the whole marathon without killing yourself. You must think about quitting drinking alcohol or getting rid of any bad habit as a reverse of this process. It's not wise to go from all-out to nothing overnight. The judicial thing to do is to strategically reduce your alcohol consumption over the preparation period.

As we said before, the foundations of your 30 Day Alcohol Reboot are going to be laid within this preparation time. By the time you jump across that starting line, you will be ahead of the beginners mind. However, you can do this in one evening by allowing distorted thoughts to take you by surprise. There's an old Italian, "A good beginning makes a good ending". You have already done a lot of the hard-working getting yourself prepared, whether you are quitting for 30 days or longer, now is the time to get the best possible start to your journey. That begins the day before. Should you drink the day before? How should you prepare your environment? Who should you tell? What should you practice?

Cravings are something which we will be dealing with a much greater depth throughout this course. For now, I want to give you a basic toolbox for dealing with cravings over the next day or two. Remember that a craving is only a feeling, and that feeling is fed by thought. The thought can keep feeding the feeling, the feeling feeding the thought, or you can cut off the supply of food and kill the feeling. As I've said several times throughout this process, your mind can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. And that choice is yours.

Your success can only be guaranteed by you. At the end of the day, the simplest way of looking at quitting drinking alcohol is that if you do not put alcohol into your mouth, you win. Your challenge will be completed. If you put alcohol into your mouth at any stage during this challenge, you lose. An alcohol habit has been built up over many years sip after sip. Each glass bottle that those sips were drawn from has been lifted to your mouth by your hand. Nobody ever forced you to drink alcohol. Nobody will ever force you not to drink alcohol, unless you get locked up in prison or some other place where you cannot find a drink. If that were the case, you would have no problem in not drinking. You might feel uncomfortable, but you cannot drink. This is the mindset you have to develop. You can get this kind of commitment without it being forced on you. It just takes you not lifting the glass to your lips. It's a simple enough task. A child could do it. Can you, as an adult, do it also?

One of the typical questions I am asked from people who are about quit drinking is what should they replace the alcohol with? 

It’s a good question. 
It’s a question that as drinkers, we probably haven’t thought about in a long time. 
The best possible scenario is replacing alcohol with water. In this video alcohol through a few scenarios.

Quitting drinking alcohol is a process, regardless of whether you're doing this for 30 days only or you want to make this a lifestyle choice. As a process, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Looking at things from a 30 day perspective gives you a very small version of that beginning, middle, and end. If you are looking to quit drinking in the long-term, you might think that there is no end. There is, and probably a lot sooner than you think. The end to the process is when you no longer think about drinking alcohol as a part of your daily life. Let's step forwards into the first week :-)

Expectations are a huge part in motivation and success. What should you expect from this process? First of all, give yourself a huge pat on the back for stepping across that starting line and beginning your new journey. You should feel excited about this new journey you are about to undertake. At the very least you will give your body a break from consuming this toxin. If you go long-term, your life will change in so many ways.

“Believe that you can do it and you are halfway there.”

This motivational quote from the 26th US President, Theodore Roosevelt, has truth no matter where you apply it in life. 
However, the opposite is also true. 
If you believe that you cannot do it, you will certainly drag your mind in the opposite direction. 

One of the best pieces of advice I give you as you start out is to keep things as simple as possible. Complexity will only add confusion. Confusion is your enemy in the first few days. Simplicity will reward you. Look for the simple truth is and the simplest solution. How can you make this journey as simple as possible?

With any change, most of your biggest battles are going to be fought inside your own mind. It's very easy to allow yourself to drift into a negative mindset. What I mean by that is not that you will start to think negatively, but that you will start to think about your old behaviour in a positive way. This is a form of negative hijacking. The part of your mind which is responsible for habits is trying to convince you to go back to your old ways. As we said earlier, habits are inconsiderate. They are not imbued with moral values. Repetition is the main driving force. When you think about habit like this, you can see how your brain will try to re-establish the habit even against your better judgement, even when you are trying to eliminate it. So, this video will give you a few techniques to counteract that natural tendency.

Archimedes famously said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world”. 

Personal leverage is a tool that gives you very little choice but to keep moving forwards. With any habit change, we are basically trying to balance what we want in the moment with what we know is good for us, how we view ourselves in the future. Leverage gives you a pretty basic insight into this concept of balance. Often, drinking alcohol will give you immediate pleasure, or at least it will appear to be pleasurable because of your long established habit. What you are trying to do with leverage is counteract that perception of pleasure with an immediate perception of pain. I'll explain more in the video.

In the early days of any habit change, it's all about trying to win small battles, to edge yourself forwards bit by bit. In any habit change, in any area of self-improvement, you improve in small increments. But sometimes, these small incremental improvements can present you with momentary physical or mental challenges.

One of the easiest ways of overcoming these challenges is to have a few select positive sentences that you say to yourself which will snap your mind out of the momentary, and set you back on track. 

A very simple positive sentence is "Yes I Can"… You might recognise this from the Obama presidential campaign slogan, "Yes We Can". Another simple one, stolen from Nike, is "Just Do It". 

You get the idea. These are your personal mission statements. They are a quick, easy positive saying that you can repeat to yourself over and over. In this video were going to go through some more positive personal statements, or affirmations.

Unless you lock yourself away for the whole 30 days, your 30 Day Alcohol Reboot is likely to throw up some pressure on the social front. 

Family and friends are usually very well-meaning, but can sometimes, often inadvertently, stick a spanner in the works. 
In this section, were going to look at a simple cognitive-behavioral therapy approach known as Recognize-Avoid-Cope (RAC).

As we said in the last section, if you find yourself in a situation where you are being offered a drink, you need to have some very simple resistance strategies on hand. 

The best strategy in most cases is simply to say "No, thanks", and leave it at that. 
It's amazing really that some people find it very difficult to say no. There are many reasons for this. There is a fear of conflict. Some people just don't want to disappoint or heard somebody else. How do you say 'No!'?

In the preparation stage, we talked about preparing your mind, your environment, and the people in your life. However, with the best will in the world, not everybody is going to understand or like your decision to quit. The truth is, some people will work against you, whether actively or passively. Dealing with these critics is essential. Always remember that you are the one that is in control. In this video, will go through a few techniques for dealing with criticism or maybe even a level of ostracism.

What exactly are cravings? The word craving has a lot of baggage attached to it. It is used for something that you long for or want greatly. It could be something that you require or need. The fact is that cravings are nothing more than discomfort, mostly in the mind. They are subjective, they can sometimes be intense, and some people will blow them out of proportion and allow them to derail their efforts at change. In this video going to share some very simple techniques for overcoming your cravings.

In this first week, one of the common obstacles experienced by many people is the initial negative feedback that you may receive as a result of you trying to eliminate your old habit. Again, this is only perception, it's only short lived, and like many of the other negative thoughts and feelings, these perceptions are truly in the eye and control of the beholder. It's important, therefore, that you try to balance this initial negative feedback with plenty of positive feedback in the form of rewards. In this video, talk about celebrating your successes with two different types of rewards, interval rewards and completion rewards.

What should be your number one priority in life, as a general rule? For me, that number one priority is good nutrition. If you have good nutrition, you give your body the building blocks for everything else. Nutrition, good or bad, affects your sleep, your thinking (your choices, your decisions, your planning, and so on), your actions, your relationships, your career, etc, etc... Your physical body is the only one that you will ever have. Once you have used it up, that's it, game over…!

Long-term success in life is dependent on you feeding your body the right fuel for the job. How long would your petrol car last if you tried to run it on diesel? How long would your brand new computer last if you plugged it into the wrong voltage? How long would it last if you uploaded the wrong type of program? If you owned a racehorse, you wouldn't feed it on a donkey diet. Why do it to yourself? You get out of your body exactly what you put in. You are what you eat.

These same rules will apply if you are following a 30 Day Alcohol Reboot for a mere 30 days or you are taking this journey into the long-term.

Congratulations on reaching week two. Charles J Givens, said "Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort." 

Just getting past that first week means that you have momentum on your side. Experience is absolutely essential with habit change. As the days go by, you are gradually moving away from your old past behaviours, bit by bit breaking them down, and building your experience of life without, in this case, alcohol. 

The first week is always the toughest because you are closer to the old habit. You are still in the beginners mind to a certain extent. The further you move away from that starting line, the easier things will get.

One of my biggest pre-habit change pieces of advice is to try and avoid the triggers that spark your behaviour. So, with alcohol, I would tell you to avoid going to bars or parties or anywhere else where alcohol is the focus of attention. 

However, there are going to be times in your life when you just cannot avoid these places or things. A surprise party, for instance. Something that you really have to go to, that there is no getting out of without a lot of drama. And drama is another thing that I encourage you to avoid. 

So, what do you do? Here's a few tips on overcoming this particular type of obstacle.

You've heard the old saying, you cannot see the forest for the trees. As you go through the first couple of weeks of any habit change process, your focus is naturally on the specifics. 

With any habit, the actual details of the habit, the step-by-steps, actually sink down into your subconscious mind. That's how a habit works, it's known as automaticity. When you are trying to change that habit, you have to bring the automatic subconscious thoughts and actions into your conscious mind. This takes effort. This takes thought. This is where the details are. 

The problem is, when you are focusing in on the specifics, it's very difficult to look at the big picture. This video is all about gaining some perspective by comparing yourself with other people who are still drinking in order to maintain your own momentum.

By this stage, your cravings should have subsided. If you follow the advice that I gave in week one regarding your cravings, they will have probably disappeared almost altogether. This is the nature of mind over matter. When you have control over your mind, the cravings don't matter. This video is for people who are still feeling, or thinking, some level of craving. Sometimes, a new situation can bring up a new type of cravings, it's a natural thing. So, here's some more tips on dealing with the situations, thoughts, and feelings.

How are you feeling now that you are in week two? The more distance you put between yourself and your old behaviour, the easier it is to keep going forwards. However, sometimes there is a tendency in the human mind to start looking at your old habit through rose tinted glasses once the initial pain that pushed you into your decision to change has subsided. It's natural, but it is a threat to your momentum. This video will teach you some additional motivational techniques to keep you on track.

When you start any challenge, the last thing you want to be thinking about is a failure. Failure is about as momentum sapping as you will get. However, it's important to see things in their proper perspectives. Life is full of mistakes. Progress is full of mistakes. Without mistakes, there cannot be progress. The idea of progress is usually predicated on a failure. Something is not working as it should be, so is born the idea of something better, progress… So, in this video I want to share with you a couple of different ways of viewing your mistakes.

Congratulations on getting to week three of your 30 Day Alcohol Reboot. At this point, is a good idea to start taking stock of where you are. What's been going on so far in your journey? How you feeling? How are your thought processes? In this video we'll look at how your alcohol habit is changing. We'll look at your levels of dependence, the alcohol drinking scale, tolerance, alcohol damage, physical and psychological withdrawal, and becoming much more aware of what you are doing to yourself.

We all love to hear good news about our bad habits, whether those bad habits are smoking, drinking, overeating, and so on… Alcohol plays a large part in our culture. Why is that? Alcohol is a drug, and like any other drug, it has the capacity to cause undesirable effects in your body, within your mind, and in your life. In this video, I want you to start looking at your life as a drinker. We are a couple of weeks into this process, and it's time to start thinking about what you are going to do after the 30 days has finished. More importantly, it's time to start thinking about your future life as a drug user.

Here we are in week three. You already have a couple of weeks behind you and you’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Only a couple of weeks left. In today's video, I'd like to continue on with some more motivational techniques that you can use if you find that you are lacking in that area.

We are almost there. The end is in sight. This week we are going to start evaluating your onwards journey. Where do you go from here? What has brought you to this point in your life? What is it that will motivate you to put the effort into that final push? What is it that will motivate you to continue on with this journey? First of all, let's see how far you have come :-)

Before we leave week 4, I want to talk more about tolerance, as well as addiction and normality.

Tolerance and addiction are two sides of the same coin. Physical alcohol tolerance and addiction boil down to: the more you drink the more you need to drink. 

But tolerance and addiction go much deeper than this. 

Welcome to day 30. Congratulations on reaching this important milestone. Before we move on, I really want to try and talk you into continuing this journey. Quitting drinking alcohol is one of the best things that I have ever done for myself, for my family, for my career, and for my life in general. In the next section, I'll talk a bit about my own story, suffice to say here that my life completely changed for the better when I stopped drinking alcohol. I am, with no shadow of a doubt, and much better version of myself now that I don't put that poison in, than I ever was while drinking, thinking about drinking, or drunk :-)

Please give this video a lot of thought.

For those of you who have finished the challenge and can’t wait to get back to their poison, stick with me a little bit longer as we explore life after the 30 Day Alcohol Reboot. 

First of all I want you to think about what has changed in your life in these 30 days. Think about all the benefits that you have accrued over the short space of time. Now think about the benefits that are possible if you doubled that time, or tripled it. I always encourage people to break down big goals into smaller chunks. It's the way we think. It's the way we plan. It's the way we get things done. And quitting drinking alcohol is no different. Once the alcohol doesn't go into your body, you've done the job, in reality. But many of the changes that you need to make in order to create long-term success, require time and patience and perseverance. So, breaking the goal of never drinking again into smaller 30 day chunks is a wise move in the early days.

In this video, I want to talk a bit about my story, why I started drinking, and why I stopped. My life can definitely be broken down into two separate parts, before I stopped and after I stopped. I am still that person, the same person I've always been, in many ways, and yet in so many ways I have changed beyond belief, beyond what I thought was possible. It's actually a running joke in my family that if there was somebody among us (there are five boys and four girls in my family) who would quit drinking alcohol, take on a whole foods plant-based diet, start walking for miles every day, take a degree course in psychology, write books, and teach people about habit change, it most certainly wouldn't be me. 

So, what now? 
Could you do more days? Could you go for longer? Why not continue? What's stopping you? If you feel good now, are you not just a little curious about how good you might feel after two months, three months, six months, or a year?

Have I convinced you to carry on? I hope I have. But if I haven't, I would like to give you some information which could save you a lot of pain and heartache later in life. Putting a toxin into your body, especially one as bad as alcohol, is always going to cause damage. There is nothing you can do to stop that. However, there are things that you can do to mitigate the damage.

Most people will end the 30 day challenge like this thinking that they have reset their habit and their tolerance levels. This is probably true, but only for a few days if you start drinking again. The part of your brain which control your habit and tolerance have a kind of memory. They know where they are going back to, and they arrive at that destination fairly quickly. In this video, I want to look at the under-control-trap, aka alcohol moderation.

Is there such a thing as a healthy alcohol use? Is there such a thing as a healthy drink of alcohol? If I asked you was there such a thing as a healthy cigarette or a healthy smoker, what would your response be? The majority of people would answer no to this question, and with good reason. Cigarette smoking is deadly to the human body. Exactly the same thing can be said for alcohol consumption. Alcohol is damaging to the human body, end of story. In this video, I look at the "benefits" of drinking alcohol.

I looked at the so-called "benefits" of drinking alcohol. In this video, I want to look at the real benefits of being alcohol free. I told you some of my story a couple of videos ago, I told you how quitting alcohol was one of the best things that I have ever done for myself, certainly the most constructive. I am living the life I want to live without the straitjacket that alcohol imprisoned me with. I'm not talking about the benefits of not having a hangover, although that in itself is worth the hassle of going through the discomfort. Removing alcohol from my life, although not a magic bullet, has allowed my brain to run clean for the past five and half years. With that clean running brain and body, and with the thousands and thousands of dollars that I have saved because of not drinking alcohol, my life has continuously been on the onwards and upwards spiral. One thing feeds into another, no poison, fewer incidents of ill-health. More energy to think and get things done. More money to put into my life. More achievements, more successes, feeling more accomplished, better performances, more creation, easier efforts, bigger triumphs and victories, and a much better life overall, by far. There is not one area of my life that has not improved

What should you do now?